Onco Actu du 16 février 2017

	1. Biologie
What can cancer research learn from ‘the origin of life’? [The Institute of Cancer research] It was standing room only when UCL's Dr Nick Lane presented at the ICR's annual 'Darwin Lecture' last week. Dr Christopher Tape was in attendance to find out why cancer biologists should be interested in the 'evolutionary big bang' that gave rise to eukaryotic cells.
	3.1 Tabac
With colon cancer, smokers may be less likely to survive [Reuters] Researchers examined five-year survival odds for 18,166 people diagnosed with colorectal cancer and found current smokers were 14 percent more likely to die during the study period than people who never smoked.
	3.2 Prévention - Obésité
Older women reduce their endometrial cancer risk with weight loss [Reuters] “It is not too late to lose weight to reduce cancer risk, even if you are older,” Luo said. The study only looked at older women, but Luo said she thinks it is reasonable to think the effects might apply to younger women too, and more research is indicated.
	4.11 Dép., diag. & prono. - Ovaire
Analyzing Copies of Genes Offers New Treatment Possibilities for Ovarian Cancer [UC San Diego] “Our study suggests that a roadmap of targetable genetic changes in tumors should not be limited to mutations.”
	4.9 Dép., diag. & prono. - Sein
More patients with early-stage breast cancer may be able to avoid chemotherapy in the future [MD Anderson] For women with intermediate risk recurrence score from 21-gene expression assay, less may be more.
Mammograms plus personalized treatment are the best options to fight breast cancer [STAT] Adopting what I call “smart screening” may be a better approach. It involves earlier and possibly more intense breast cancer screening among women at higher risk for the disease, perhaps because of their family history, and later and possibly less-intense screening among those at low risk.
	5. Traitements
First-Line Treatment of EGFR and ALK Wild-Type Advanced/Metastatic NSCLC: Refined Endpoints and Statistical Analysis Plan in the Phase III MYSTIC Study [ESMO] While the focus remains on exploring the benefit of durvalumab plus tremelimumab as combination therapy, the company has updated the endpoints of the MYSTIC trial to include OS and PFS in durvalumab monotherapy.
Potential New Cancer Therapy Could Target Tumors Two Ways [NCI] The potential therapy targets a protein called TNFR2. This protein is present at elevated levels on many tumor cells as well as on a type of immune cell that can prevent a cancer patient’s immune system from attacking tumors.
	5.12.2 Immunothérapies - CAR-T
Number of CAR cell therapy trials worldwide [Cell Trials] 252 unique trials were identified from 2004 to the end of 2016.
	5.3 Traitements - FDA, EMA, NICE...
Europe ready to embrace first copies of biotech cancer drugs [Reuters] The EMA has to date approved 23 biosimilars against just four in the United States.
	5.4 Traitements - Economie
Venetoclax for treating chronic lymphocytic leukaemia [NICE] The committee concluded that people enrolled in the venetoclax clinical trials were likely to have a lower burden of disease than the people for whom venetoclax would be an option in England, and that the treatment benefit for these people was therefore uncertain.
NICE shoots down AbbVie's wannabe leukemia blockbuster Venclexta [FiercePharma] The committee’s concerns included the single-arm design of the med’s trials, which “meant that the results were potentially biased”; the fact that “the trials included relatively few people”; and the source of the data for a trial pitting Venclyxto against best supportive care.
NICE rejects AbbVie’s leukaemia drug [Pharmafile] NICE has rejected AbbVie Venclyxto (venetoclax) for the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukmaemia, on various grounds but primarily focusing upon the evidence base for the drug. Pricing was also an issue for the drug, exceeding the £30,000 per QALY limit.
EU Maltese Presidency on Fairer Pricing for Cancer Drugs [ESMO] New medicines were coming on the market at very high prices, putting healthcare systems across Europe under financial pressure.
	5.5 ASCO
2017 Symposium Highlights Notable Research Advances in Genitourinary Cancers [ASCO] These noteworthy abstracts investigate several approaches to the treatment and management of prostate cancer, bladder cancer, and advanced kidney cancer.
	6. Lutte contre les cancers
Henrietta Lacks’s family wants compensation for her cells [Washington Post] Lawrence Lacks said that he is the executor of his mother’s estate and that an agreement that the National Institutes of Health made with other family members over the years regarding the use of the cells was not valid. That agreement did not include compensation.
	6.7 DMP, Big Data & applis
We Order Anything From Anywhere In A Flash But Still Fill Out Paper Forms At The Doctor’s Office. Why? [Dr Len] Maybe it is time that we as cancer patients, caregivers, families and many others stand up and demand better attention to our personal needs when it comes to our interactions with health systems. Some of these systems understand how to do it, while many others do not.
	6.9 Controverses
Stop Freaking Out About CRISPR! (Except For One Thing) [Forbes] Editas’ license to its patents grants it exclusivity for using CRISPR only on the diseases where it is actually developing treatments. That leaves plenty of room for other companies, and plenty of incentive for the patent owners to grant out other licenses. All this drama may be over single-digit royalty rates.
The CRISPR patent decision: Your six takeaways [STAT] Might this be less momentous than it seems? Yes. CRISPR-Cas9 is unlikely to be the last genome-editing technology ever discovered.
Patent board tells CRISPR scientists to back off from a nasty fight over gene editing tech [EndPoints] Berkeley’s Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier have been credited with much of the work, which has been used to found a group of startups like Intellia, down 11% this afternoon, and CRISPR Therapeutics — down 30%.
Round one of CRISPR patent legal battle goes to the Broad Institute [Science] The statement says Broad has “deep respect” for the contributions made by Doudna and Charpentier, who have already won many prestigious awards for their work. It also notes that USPTO now has issued 50 patents related to CRISPR—14 have gone to Broad—and predicts many more will be issued.
Patent Office Hands Win in CRISPR Battle to Broad Institute [MIT Technology Review] In a brief order, the patent court ruled there is “no interference in fact.” Translating the legalese: the two schools’ discoveries don’t actually overlap and the fight is off. For now.
Broad Institute wins bitter battle over CRISPR patents [Nature] One of the inventors on that patent, molecular biologist Jennifer Doudna of the University of California in Berkeley, likened the situation to licensing permission to someone who wants to use green tennis balls. "They will have a patent on the green tennis balls," she said, referring to the Broad patents. "We will have a patent on all tennis balls."
Harvard and M.I.T. Scientists Win Gene-Editing Patent Fight [NY Times] The decision, in a bitterly fought dispute closely watched by scientists and the biotechnology industry, was a blow to the University of California, often said to be the birthplace of the technique, which is known as Crispr-Cas9.