In a major speech to cancer doctors Saturday, the outgoing president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology told his colleagues to prepare for a new era in which rapidly advancing genetic technology will change the way cancer is treated for the better – but also force doctors to change the way they invent and test drugs and care for patients. This bold declaration came as the first results of this way of thinking bear fruit. A drug made by pharmaceutical giants Roche and Daiichi Sankyo reduces the risk of death from melanoma by 63% – if the skin cancer tumor has a particular mutation. A Pfizer lung cancer treatment awaiting regulatory approval keeps lung cancer patients alive longer – if they are in the small minority that have a very specific genetic defect. Two clinical trials that have been presented at ASCO ‘s annual meeting in Chicago, which I’m attending, showed it is possible to pick drugs for patients using a panel of genetic tests.
