Onco Actu du 11 avril 2017

	1. Biologie
9 burning questions about CRISPR genome editing answered [Cancer Research UK] Whether or not CRISPR will ultimately match its promise is unknown. But it’s an exciting time for science. Of that there is no doubt.
	4.11 Dép., diag. & prono. - Ovaire
New technology can detect tiny ovarian tumors [MIT Technology Review] “Synthetic biomarkers” could be used to diagnose ovarian cancer months earlier than now possible.
	4.2 Dép., diag. & prono. - Génome
FDA approves 23andMe’s at-home DNA test, but bathroom scale may work just as well for predicting health [HealthNewsReview] It turns out that for many common chronic diseases, body weight, BMI or waist circumference are more predictive of future risk than a gene score. This information is free, easy to obtain and actionable. Unfortunately, it is also increasingly ignored.
	4.9 Dép., diag. & prono. - Sein
Some Doctors Are Giving Mammogram Advice That Could Hurt Women [FiveThirtyEight] The results of a survey being reported today in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine suggests that many of these women might never get a chance to weigh the pros and cons.
Are women getting too many mammograms, or not enough? [CNN] "Clinicians are concerned that if they do not recommend starting screening earlier and they have a patient diagnosed with breast cancer at a young age, they may be sued."
	5. Traitements
Drugs That Work In Mice Often Fail When Tried In People [NPR] "Imagine you were doing a human drug trial and you said to the FDA, 'OK, I'm going to do this trial in 43-year-old white males in one small town in California,'" Garner says — a town where everyone lives in identical ranch homes, with the same monotonous diets and the same thermostat set to the same temperature.
	5.12 Immunothérapies
Long term benefits of immunotherapy emerging for some patients, though key questions remain [Cancer Research UK] “We need to devise variations of immunotherapy that are more specifically tailored to each individual diagnosis, and to find out how we can minimise side effects of these treatments in some people.”
	5.2.1 Pharma - Partenariats
Johnson & Johnson hangs fire on Geron decision after latest data review [FierceBiotech] The inaction means trials of the telomerase inhibitor in myelodysplastic syndromes and relapsed or refractory myelofibrosis will keep moving forward for now, but leaves Geron without reassurance about the drug’s long-term future.
	5.2.3 Pharma - économie
OncoMed Shares Sink as One Drug Fails, Bayer Kicks Back Two Others [Xconomy] Demcizumab, meanwhile, is one of several drugs involved in OncoMed’s deal with Celgene. The company had roughly $185 million in cash on hand at the end of 2016.
OncoMed shares crushed as Celgene-partnered lead drug flops and Bayer takes a pass on options [EndPoints] The mid-stage study of demcizumab was an embarrassing failure for the primary as well as the key secondary endpoint in the study of metastatic pancreatic cancer — a tough field in cancer R&D.
OncoMed sinks as cancer drug fails; Bayer opts against licensing drugs [Reuters] This is a major setback for OncoMed and for cancer stem cell targets more broadly, which have been a difficult area of drug development, Leerink's Michael Schmidt said in a research note.
	5.3 Traitements - FDA, EMA, NICE...
List of would-be European Medicines Agency host cities lengthens, as head calls for rapid decision [FierceBiotech] As it stands, the list of countries in the running are Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain.
	5.3.4 Traitements - AMM (FDA, EMA)
FDA Approves Ribociclib, Expands Palbociclib Approval for Metastatic Breast Cancer [NCI] These approvals are likely to affect many patients with metastatic breast cancer, said Stanley Lipkowitz, M.D., Ph.D., chief of the Women’s Malignancies Branch of NCI’s Center for Cancer Research. "The vast majority of patients with metastatic breast cancer are HR positive, HER2 negative," he explained.
	5.4 Traitements - Economie
NICE turns down BMS' Opdivo for head and neck cancer [Pharmafile] As a caveat to the ruling, NICE’s draft guidance does note that those already taking the drug will continue to receive it until told otherwise by their doctor. Consultees are now welcomed to comment on the decision until 4 May.
UK cost agency turns down Bristol drug for head and neck cancer [Reuters] The draft decision from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is the latest example of an expensive new cancer drug being spurned by the watchdog over cost issues.
'Gamechanging' cancer drug rejected for use on NHS [The Guardian] Although nivolumab can give people with advanced head and neck cancers an extra three months of life – when survival expectancy at present is around six months – the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) has rejected it.
	5.6 ESMO
eUpdate – Renal Cell Carcinoma Treatment Recommendations [ESMO] Second-line treatment has recently been dramatically modified by the report of two large phase III trials showing improvement in OS with nivolumab [an anti-programmed death 1 (PD-1) inhibitor] and cabozantinib [38–40] over everolimus.
	6.12 Ethique
Use caution when editing genes, new report advises [Stanford Medicine] There’s an important distinction between gene editing to alleviate disease or prevent disability, which could be ethical with appropriate caution and oversight, and gene editing for “enhancement,” which is likely to be unethical because it would “violate certain core principles such as respect for persons, equity, and fairness,” Porteus and his co-authors write.
	6.6 Publications
Rather than simply moving from “paying to read” to “paying to publish”, it’s time for a European Open Access Platform [LSE] All of that would be possible for a fraction of the money that is currently spent on licensing agreements and that is planned to be spent to smooth the transition to open access. All it needs to start is determined action and investment by science policymakers. It’s about time that academia took back control of its key product: knowledge.
Should biomedical research be like Airbnb? [PLoS Biology] We illustrate how the analogy to internet-based platforms works and does not work and introduce The Commons, under active development at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and elsewhere, as an example of the move towards platforms for research.