http://www.xconomy.com/national/2009/11/30/a-smarter-war-on-cancer/ Business + Technology in the Exponential Economy Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:53:35 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 http://www.xconomy.com/national/2009/11/30/a-smarter-war-on-cancer/comment-page-1/#comment-96732 Individualized cancer research « Follow the Data Mon, 07 Dec 2009 15:21:02 +0000 http://www.xconomy.com/?p=52025#comment-96732 [...] Hood of the Institute for Systems Biology recently wrote about their ideas in an editorial called A Smarter War on Cancer: One alternative to this conventional approach would be to treat a small number of highly motivated [...] [...] Hood of the Institute for Systems Biology recently wrote about their ideas in an editorial called A Smarter War on Cancer: One alternative to this conventional approach would be to treat a small number of highly motivated [...]

]]> http://www.xconomy.com/national/2009/11/30/a-smarter-war-on-cancer/comment-page-1/#comment-95383 Andrew Kolodziej Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:29:08 +0000 http://www.xconomy.com/?p=52025#comment-95383 (1) tailored cancer drugs are where the future of treatment lies--Gleevec and Herceptin provide this model. For broad spectrum drugs (e.g. Bortezomib with a 40-60% response rate), there is a need to predict responders--functional or genetic profiles will be required and are under development. Financial issues are also involved: UK will not reimburse if the patient fails to respond. (2) Engineering N=1 is going to require more cooperativity and shared standards than is current in the industry, and it is doubtful that we are at the stage where that will useful (have we even identified the right targets) (3) Cancer patient participation in clinical trials is very low (<5%?, the indications and disease etiology are fragmented, and there is intense competition for enrolling them (4) The health care system should put the brakes on treatments with marginal (<2-3 month) survival benefit, exhorbitant cost, and poor side effect profiles. (1) tailored cancer drugs are where the future of treatment lies–Gleevec and Herceptin provide this model. For broad spectrum drugs (e.g. Bortezomib with a 40-60% response rate), there is a need to predict responders–functional or genetic profiles will be required and are under development. Financial issues are also involved: UK will not reimburse if the patient fails to respond.
(2) Engineering N=1 is going to require more cooperativity and shared standards than is current in the industry, and it is doubtful that we are at the stage where that will useful (have we even identified the right targets)
(3) Cancer patient participation in clinical trials is very low (<5%?, the indications and disease etiology are fragmented, and there is intense competition for enrolling them
(4) The health care system should put the brakes on treatments with marginal (<2-3 month) survival benefit, exhorbitant cost, and poor side effect profiles.

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