A tremendous amount of resources and efforts have been put in to fighting cancer, resulting in numerous advances at an accelerating pace. In the last five years, our industry has launched more than 100 novel anticancer therapeutics. And yet, with 19 million people diagnosed and 10 million people dying annually globally, cancer remains one of our deadliest foes.
The problem is widely known: all too often, we are intervening too late. Most oncology drug development focuses on optimizing palliative strategies to treat advanced, metastatic disease. Some of these approaches are then applied in the adjuvant or neoadjuvant settings, but addressing very early-stage cancer or precancerous lesions is generally seen as the purview of diagnostic tests (e.g., a colonoscopy, a Pap smear, etc.) and surgical or radiotherapy procedures.
Vaccines to prevent cancers caused by viral infections (e.g., HBV, HPV) are a rare exception, not the rule, in oncology drug development. But does it have to be?
Could we be on the cusp of a new paradigm enabled by advances in early diagnostic technologies, identification of early drivers of cancer, and the new openness at regulatory agencies around to how to develop preventive drugs? What would it take to establish a paradigm where treating risk is the norm as opposed to forestalling inevitable outcomes? And could the early interception paradigm be not only better for health outcomes but also better for the financial success of drug developers?
During this webinar, we will attempt to answer all of these questions by reflecting the history of the early interception space, the new thinking around the evolution of cancer and new targets, as well as strategic, clinical, and commercial considerations for Biotech, Pharma, investors, clinicians, regulatory agencies, and payers. Join us as we discuss how to steer Oncology in a different directionthers.
