ASCO asco19 is over. Phew, the big kahuna has finished for another year. Teams all over the world can relax.
Flights arrived and stands were built. Bravo!
But, as you know in oncology it’s all about evidence and endpoints. To me (and some oncologists I have spoken with) the news was mixed (some great news, some bad news & some mixed). Here’s some views I gleaned:
1. MONALEESA-7 Phase III for ribociclib – in premenopausal patients with HR+/HER2− advanced breast cancer (ABC) treated with endocrine therapy ± ribociclib (Kisquali): Wow! – Overall Survival (OS) improvement was highly significant for the combination in a very difficult to treat cancer – really great news for patients & for Novartis
2. ANNOUNCE Phase III for olaratumab in STS: Sadly the promise of OS improvements in sarcoma (seen in earlier phases) were dashed – A sad day for STS patients & difficult for the Eli Lilly team as well.
3. POLO Phase III for olaparib in BRCA metastatic pancreatic cancer: The data (at first view) is exciting, plus, this is a new targeted therapy for a fairly rare tumour. But, to some, the group of patients chosen and the trial design (placebo as maintenance vs olaparib as maintenance) has left some observers concerned regards the real benefit.
Let me ask a somewhat controversial question:
If a drug in cancer is shown to have delayed the progression of a tumour, but has NOT shown an improvement is QoL or symptoms and has not improved how long a patient survives (versus current standards of care) should that drug be prescribed?
I cannot answer that, but be sure, payers and prescribers will answer it.
So, more studies on QoL in cancer would be great. More focus on patient centricity in the interpretation of data would be fabulous… don’t you think?
Here’s to next year!