A record 887 medicines for various cancers are in clinical trials or awaiting Food and Drug Administration (FDA) review — well over double the number in the pipeline just six years ago, according to a report unveiled today by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).
That includes a leukemia drug being developed in Auburn by Syntrix Biosystems.
Syntrix Biosystems has completed Phase II clinical trials for Aminopterin, which fights acute lymphoblastic leukemia. This form of leukemia can be rapidly fatal and primarily afflicts children and older adults. The next step is Phase III trials, which include larger-scale testing on a group of 300 to 3,000 patients for efficacy and safety.
When PhRMA released its first accounting of medicines in development for cancer in 1988, only 65 were recorded. The numbers over the next decade grew gradually. As recently as 2005, there were fewer than 400 medicines in development for cancer.
“Unprecedented insights into how cancer cells develop, grow and spread are providing new targets and new ways of attacking the disease,” said John J. Castellani, PhRMA’s president and CEO (pictured left), explaining the increase. “Rapidly advancing technologies and the commitment of researchers to follow new clues are providing hope.”
One promising development is the increased understanding about the many ways a tumor can protect and feed itself by co-opting the body’s own mechanisms, for example by reducing the efficacy of the immune system and by proliferating the growth of blood vessels, said Garry Neil, M.D., corporate vice president of science and technology at Johnson & Johnson. Dr. Neil is also chair of PhRMA’s Science and Regulatory Affairs Executive Committee.
Other remarkable new developments in cancer research include a better understanding of the key role that cancer stem cells play in resistance to chemotherapy, and the interplay between cancer cells and the supporting tissue that surround them, said Scott Waldman, M.D., Ph.D., of the Kimmel Cancer Center.
