Onco Actu du 30 juillet 2018

	1. Biologie
Scientists Identify Growth Signal for Metastatic Cancer "Seeds" [Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center] “We’ve identified a molecule that metastasis-initiating cancer cells need in order to start growing in a new location,” explains Dr. Massagué, who also serves as Director of the Sloan Kettering Institute. “If we deprive the cells of this molecule, they can still infiltrate distant organs, but they fail to grow into a new tumor.”
	5. Traitements
A comprehensive review of exceptional responders to anticancer drugs in the biomedical literature [European Journal of Cancer] Many of our cases of exceptional responders were missing important information about the response and key oncologic history. Standardised criteria should be used to maximise usefulness of these case reports in the future.
	5.12 Immunothérapies
Developing Biomarkers for Immunotherapy: A Conversation with Drs. Magdalena Thurin and Helen Chen [NCI] Currently, a minority of patients with cancer benefit from immunotherapies. But we don’t know why only some patients respond to immunotherapy, and we cannot reliably predict which patients will benefit from the therapy.
Meet the Dutch Scientists who Invented Keytruda, “The President’s Drug” [Labiotech] The inventors told us their story, from the drug’s early days to their current role as executives of the biotech unicorn Aduro.
	5.12.5 Immunothérapies - Pharma
Bristol-Myers Drops After Cancer Drug Combo Rejected in Europe [Bloomberg] During a call discussing the company’s second-quarter results, Chief Executive Officer Giovanni Caforio said that Bristol-Myers’s combination cancer treatment had failed to secure additional approval from European regulators for use in a form of kidney cancer. Adding new indications for the drugs has been a key part of their growth.
Bristol-Myers takes another hit on Opdivo/Yervoy combo as CHMP turns thumbs down on frontline kidney cancer [EndPoints] Bristol-Myers, which has a champion’s title at stake, is not taking this lying down. R&D chief Tom Lynch, who learned about the setback on Wednesday, is prepping an appeal — but the odds are not in its favor.
	5.12.6 Immunothérapies - AMM
Imfinzi receives positive EU CHMP opinion for locally-advanced, unresectable non-small cell lung cancer [AstraZeneca] Imfinzi is the first immunotherapy recommended for approval for the treatment of locally-advanced, unresectable NSCLC.
AstraZeneca's key lung cancer drug wins European panel thumbs-up [Reuters] EMA’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) recommended Imfinzi (durvalumab), an immunotherapy drug already boosting sales for the British drugmaker, for use in lung cancer patients with inoperable disease that had advanced locally but not spread widely around the body.
	5.12.8 Immunothérapies - Economie
Immunotherapy drug made available for some NHS patients with Hodgkin lymphoma [Cancer Research UK] The committee recommended that pembrolizumab is made available through the Cancer Drugs Fund, which allows patients to access treatments before they are fully approved for use in the NHS. This gives the NHS and the drug company time to collect more data on the long-term benefits of the drug. The company have agreed a discounted price.
After an epic battle of blockbusters, Merck leapfrogs Bristol-Myers to take the lead on PD-1/L1 market [EndPoints] To be sure, Merck has pulled out all the stops in its epic head-to-head struggle with Bristol-Myers, which took a big, early lead. But it’s the R&D team under Roger Perlmutter who enjoys the lion’s share of the credit here.
	5.3.4 Traitements - AMM (FDA, EMA,...)
Novartis combination Tafinlar® + Mekinist® receives positive CHMP opinion for adjuvant treatment of BRAF V600 mutation-positive melanoma [Novartis] The CHMP recommendation is based on findings from the COMBI-AD study, which was published in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).
EMA restricts use of prostate cancer medicine Xofigo [EMA] Medicine to be used only after two previous treatments or when other treatments cannot be taken.
Meeting highlights from the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) 23-26 July 2018 [EMA] The CHMP recommended granting marketing authorisations for four cancer medicines: Braftovi (encorafenib) and Mektovi (binimetinib), two medicines to be used in combination in the treatment of patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma with a BRAF V600 mutation; Imfinzi (durvalumab), for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer and Verzenios (abemaciclib), for the treatment of locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer.
	5.5 ASCO
From Cattle Rancher to ASCO President [Medpage Today] Steeped within the world of cancer clinical trials as both a longtime researcher and cooperative group chair, she knows how much oncology has learned from the 3% of patients on clinical trials, and wants that knowledge to expand to the other 97%. She sees such ASCO programs as CancerLinQ as a way to capture more data about all cancer patients, not just those on clinical trials.
	6.7.1 IA/bioinformatique
The Real Future Of Artificial Intelligence And Cancer [Forbes] Fiona Nielsen, Founder and CEO of Repositive.io (a genomic data company), believes AI curing cancer is a way off, but possible if people get involved; “To ‘really find a cure’ it is important to unlock the data needed to make new discoveries."
IBM Watson recommended ‘unsafe’ cancer treatments, according to internal documents [The Daily Dot] The accuracy of any AI is dependent on being trained on a large dataset—the larger and more accurate the dataset, the better. Watson’s recommendations were based on expert advice from specialists on each cancer type but not masses of actual cancer treatment cases.