More dynamic therapy for treating breast cancer

"The landscape for breast cancer therapies is set to become more dynamic, as newer targeted agents and drug combinations launch over the next few years, according to new research from Decision Resources.

A US survey conducted for the study also finds that, more than any other factor, efficacy drives oncologists’ prescribing of targeted therapies for breast cancer, and that for most of the doctors polled, the escalating overall cost of drug treatment for breast cancer has little or no impact on their treatment decisions.

Reimbursement and restrictions by managed care organisations (MCOs) have only a limited influence on prescribing of approved agents, adds the study, which also polled medical directors and pharmacy directors of MCOs to examine how receptive US physicians and payers are to the integration of novel premium-priced therapies in highly generic market segments.

Treatment of first-line HER2-positive breast cancer will become increasingly fragmented, it forecasts. First-line treatment is currently dominated by Roche/Genentech/Chugai’s Herceptin (trastuzumab) and, to a lesser extent, by Roche/Genentech/Chugai’s Perjeta (everolimus)/Herceptin, but the approval of Novartis’ Afinitor (everolimus)/Herceptin and Roche/Genentech/Chugai’s Kadcyla (ado-trastuzumabemtansine)/Perjeta will recast patient share within the first line, it says.

Also, dual HER2-targeted therapies – GlaxoSmithKline’s Tykerb (lapatinib)/Herceptin and Perjeta/Herceptin – could obtain significant patient share in the adjuvant setting. If the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves Perjeta/HerceptinAdriamycin in 2016, office- and hospital-based oncologists surveyed for the study estimate that they would prescribe this therapy to over half of their adjuvant HER2+ breast cancer patients one year after launch.

And surveyed oncologists who do not currently prescribe Afinitor/exemestane to their eligible patients most commonly cited, as their reasons for not doing so, the treatment’s high cost compared with generically-available alternatives, plus their lack of familiarity with Afinitor/exemestane.

The B-cell receptor pathway mediated through BTK is constitutively activated in CLL, and this has made BTK an excellent target for clinical inhibition in CLL. Many laboratory and clinical effort is focused on the biology of B-cell neoplasia and molecular pharmacology. BTK comes forward as an outstanding targetHDAC Inhibitor for B-cell diseases as it does not produce a significant phenotype in knockout mouse models or people outside of B cells.

Early studies of ibrutinib in CLL have shown high response rates but in particular excellent durability of remission. For example, in 85 relapsed/refractory CLL patients with a median of four prior therapies, the progression free survival (PFS) is 75% at approximately 2-year follow-up. In 31 older patients given single-agent ibrutinib as up-front therapy, the PFS is 96%. Thus, the activity is excellent.

In addition, Pharmacyclics recently announced that the randomized registration trial RESONATE, which compared ibrutinib with ofatumumab in relapsed CLL patients, was stopped early because it met its primary endpoint of PFS and the key secondary endpoint of overall survival

Numerologist Warda is hooked on OG-L002 fishing, collecting. And lastly her encouragement comes from socializing along with her companions.