CognitrexCancerDigest

 A new blood test from  Roche and Foundation Medicine  has shown it can accurately measure the number of mutations within a tumour, potentially helping to predict which patients may respond best to some immunotherapies. Initial data on Roche's test aimed at determining tumour mutational burden, or  TMB , was released on Friday at the  European Society for Medical Oncology  ( ESMO ) congress in Madrid. Immunotherapies such as Roche's  Tecentriq , Merck's  Keytruda  and Bristol-Myers  Squibb 's Opdivo have offered fresh hope to people with deadly cancers, but they only work in a fraction of patients. And given immunotherapies' high costs and possible serious side effects, with British regulators having dubbed Tecentriq too expensive, doctors want better ways to identify which patients would benefit the most from such treatments. Evidence shows that tumours with more mutations are more likely to respond to immunotherapy, Roche sai...

Cancer patients living on a street outside India’s main tertiary cancer hospital have not, on average, worked for a year; they lost Rs 55,000 as income; 92% have a class 7 education or less; one in four has taken loans – from relatives and moneylenders – and spent Rs 76,000, before winding up on the pavement, according to an IndiaSpend survey of these patients. Although India’s incidence of cancer is half the world average – and a third of the western world’s – it suffers high morbidity, mortality and expenses because there aren’t enough oncologists and cancer-care facilities. A cancer diagnosis can shatter households because the disease is one of the most expensive to treat. “Catastrophic hospitalisation expenditure”–an economic term for a family’s health expenses when they exceed by 40% the family’s ability to pay — caused by cancer is almost 170% more than communicable diseases. A typical cancer patient in an Indian government facility spends Rs 36,812 ($593) for medical t...

Patients taking  Roche 's targeted lung cancer drug  Alecensa have a far lower risk of their disease spreading in the brain than those on  Pfizer 's  Xalkori , new clinical trial data show. The results, which will be presented at the Sept. 8-12  European Society for Medical Oncology congress  in Madrid, reinforce Alecensa's position in an increasingly competitive market. Alecensa is designed to treat advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in patients with a mutation of the ALK gene, which is found in about 4 percent of all people with NSCLC. Clinical results in June had already shown Alecensa worked better than Xalkori. The new data adds to evidence of its benefits, with Roche's drug shown to control existing brain metastases and inhibit the formation of new ones. Among patients who had existing metastases in the central nervous system (CNS), Alecensa reduced the risk of disease progression in the CNS by 60 percent compared to Xalkori, accord...

OncoStem Diagnostics, a Bengaluru-based oncology-focused start-up, has raised $6 million from venture capital firm Sequoia Capital India Advisors, a senior executive of the company said. Founded by Manjiri Bakre in 2011, OncoStem is focused on personalized cancer treatment planning through the development of tests that try to effectively predict the chance of cancer recurrence in patients. The start-up raised its first funding from California-based venture capital firm Artiman Ventures in 2011. Artiman invested $3 million in the company in multiple tranches. “There are no affordable tests in India to accurately predict the risk of cancer recurrence. We aim to develop innovative and cost-effective tests that will help predict and assess the risk of recurrence in cancer patients, thus providing doctors with an actionable blueprint for personalized treatments,” said Bakre. Currently, the company is focused on breast cancer recurrence detection. OncoStem will use the funds to...

Sayre Therapeutics, a super-specialty pharmaceutical company with a portfolio of Oncology, Interventional Oncology and Immunology drugs, drug delivery devices and next-generation diagnostics, has raised $8 mn USD across two rounds of funding from Accel Partners and Aarin Capital. The company has also raised $1Mn USD in venture-debt from InnoVen Capital.   The Bengaluru-based Sayre Therapeutics plans to use the funds for team expansion in India, geographical footprint in other South Asian countries, and invest in clinical trials for their novel in-licensed assets.   According to Shukrit Chimote, Chief Executive Officer, Sayre, the follow-on investment from the venture capitalists were based on the early traction seen in building a product pipeline through partnerships with global and domestic partners, a sales footprint in India and a strong team to capitalise on a USD 650MM market for Oncology and Immunology segments in the region”. “We seek to fill the gaps in early cancer d...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Mylotarg (gemtuzumab ozogamicin) for the treatment of adults with newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia whose tumors express the CD33 antigen (CD33-positive AML). The FDA also approved Mylotarg for the treatment of patients aged 2 years and older with CD33-positive AML who have experienced a relapse or who have not responded to initial treatment (refractory).  Mylotarg originally received accelerated approval in May 2000 as a stand-alone treatment for older patients with CD33-positive AML who had experienced a relapse. Mylotarg was voluntarily withdrawn from the market after subsequent confirmatory trials failed to verify clinical benefit and demonstrated safety concerns, including a high number of early deaths. Today’s approval includes a lower recommended dose, a different schedule in combination with chemotherapy or on its own, and a new patient population. “We are approving Mylotarg after a careful review of the new do...

CAR T-cell therapy approved to treat certain children and young adults with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia Silver Spring, Maryland–(ENEWSPF)–August 30, 2017. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a historic action today making the first gene therapy available in the United States, ushering in a new approach to the treatment of cancer and other serious and life-threatening diseases. The FDA approved Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel) for certain pediatric and young adult patients with a form of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). “We’re entering a new frontier in medical innovation with the ability to reprogram a patient’s own cells to attack a deadly cancer,” said FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D. “New technologies such as gene and cell therapies hold out the potential to transform medicine and create an inflection point in our ability to treat and even cure many intractable illnesses. At the FDA, we’re committed to helping expedite the development and review of groundb...