Four Cancer-Treatment Developments Worth Celebrating

When it comes to health breakthroughs, Covid-19 vaccines have received the lion’s share of recent attention – and rightly so, as they are key to ending a global pandemic that has killed millions and disrupted the lives of almost everyone on the planet. But there have also been big advancements in the field of cancer treatments. The American Society of Clinical Oncology held its annual meeting earlier this month, giving drugmakers and researchers the chance to share their findings on the latest developments in cancer research and drug research. There was much to celebrate. Here are four particularly promising takeaways:

Earlier-stage treatments. Immuno-oncology (IO) drugs, which awaken patient immune cells to hunt down tumors, have proved capable of fighting multiple types of cancers and are among the industry’s biggest blockbusters. They’ve been mostly used in late-stage cancers, limiting their potential. Earlier use as so-called adjuvant therapy after surgery to catch stray tumor cells and prevent cancer from coming back has been seen as a huge opportunity because the body-spanning immune system is the perfect tool. Until now, it had only been approved in melanoma, a relatively low bar because skin cancer has proved especially vulnerable to IO drugs, and esophageal cancer, both with Bristol's Opdivo. New data presented at ASCO confirmed the theory in other types of cancer. A year’s adjuvant treatment of lung cancer patients with Roche Holding AG’s IO flagship Tecentriq cut the risk of death by 21% relative to a placebo and left a higher proportion of patients disease-free after three years compared with the regular standard of care. There are many other adjuvant trials in progress, which will hopefully generate similar results.