New Cancer Therapies Continue to Develop and Give Hope in Rapidly Improving Oncology Space - Seite 2

Results showed that in primary tumors, pelareorep monotherapy led to a numerical increase in the number of infiltrating anti-cancer CD8+ T cells, which reached statistical significance when combined with radiotherapy (a 15-fold increase compared to control).

Makers of the drug tecentriq, Roche Holding AG (OTC:RHHBY) is at the center of many of the biggest cancer developments taking place this year. In particular the hopeful combination of Tecentriq plus carboplatin plus etoposide with maintenance Tecentriq, put forth by City of Hope in California.

"Having been in practice for 30 years, we didn't really see that kind of advancements in small cell lung cancer as compared to non-small cell lung cancer," Dr. Ravi Salgia, a medical oncologist and Arthur & Rosalie Kaplan Chair in Medical Oncology at City of Hope in California, said during CURE's Educated Patient Lung Cancer Summit. "But immunotherapy is now giving us a ray of hope, or light at the end of the tunnel."

However in another segment of the oncology field, FDA scrutiny, plus approvals for Merck &. Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) and Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE:BMY), allegedly led to Roche pulling Tecentriq for breast cancer patients.

Roche, the developer of breast cancer therapies like Herceptin, Kadcyla and Perjeta, originally sought to prove Tecentriq in triple-negative breast cancer early, gaining an accelerated approval for the disease in 2019. Unfortunately for Roche, that wasn't the case.

However, the FDA recently gave full approval to Merck's Keytruda in triple-negative disease, based on data showing the treatment plus chemotherapy could reduce patients' risk of having the cancer return or dying. The FDA decision was seen as a milestone immunotherapy approval for Merck in early breast cancer.

As new Keytruda combinations from Merck emerge, Bristol-Myers Squibb has begun to tout 5-year kidney cancer data for Opdivo-Yervoy.

Patients on the dual immunotherapy lived a median 47 months versus 27 months for those on Sutent, the aging small-molecule targeted therapy drug from Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE). Patients who lived to the three-year mark were 79% likely to remain alive for two more years. For those whose tumors hadn't progressed at three years, they were 90% likely to stay progression-free for another two years, BMS reported.