Anastrozole was already approved for use in the UK to treat breast cancer.
Depending on how you look at it, drugs that can act on multiple targets could be a boon instead of a challenge.
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Gregory Way, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
Many approved drugs work on the body in ways that researchers still aren’t entirely clear about. Seeing this as an opportunity instead of a flaw may lead to better treatments for complex conditions.
Cancer groundshot highlights that investment in improving access to treatments already proven to work saves more lives than discovery of a new treatment.
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Globally, most cancer patients die not because they don’t have access to newer drugs, but because they don’t have access to even basic treatments. Cancer groundshot aims to improve treatment access.
Lung cancer is the No. 1 cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide.
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The COVID pandemic is giving drug companies an opportunity to reset their image. So how did they get so big and their credibility sink so low?
SARS-CoV-2 turns on a cellular switch to build the tubes in this photo – called filopodia – that might help viral particles – the little spheres – spread more easily.
Dr Elizabeth Fischer, NIAID NIH / Bouhaddou et al. Elsevier 2020
Nevan Krogan, University of California, San Francisco
Kinases are cellular control switches. When they malfunction, they can cause cancer. The coronavirus hijacks these kinases to replicate, and cancer drugs that target them could fight COVID-19.
Leafcutter ants, Komodo dragons and even your nose are potential sources of new antimicrobial compounds.
The effectiveness of a drug may be evaluated based on its potential to shrink tumours – but this doesn’t necessarily equate to improved survival rates.
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National drug regulators use evidence from clinical trials to decide whether new cancer drugs will be approved for use. But these studies are often flawed.
For developing countries in Africa immunotherapy solutions is important given the high cost of cancer drugs.
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A cancer diagnosis is one of the scariest of all. The pain and fear are worsened by a confusing landscape of bills, opaque billing systems and changing insurance rules, rates and reimbursements.
Applications to list drugs on the PBS are usually submitted by the manufacturers of those drugs.
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Some argue the current system of subsidising drugs in Australia needs changing to accommodate new cancer therapies. But two recent drug listings show the current system is working perfectly well.
Most common childhood cancers are leukemia and Hodgkin lymphoma.
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Most children who have cancer live in the developing world where their survival rate is less than 25%. In Kenya awareness about childhood cancer is low and treatment isn’t always readily available.
Some people taking these drugs can see their cancer completely disappear – there’s nothing left to see on their x-rays.
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Imagine being able to offer hope to people with cancers once thought untreatable. Checkpoint immune drugs like Opdivo and Keytruda lead this new era in treatment. But they don’t work for everyone.
The high cost of cancer drugs in South Africa has come under the spotlight with an investigation by the Competition Commission in the country.
Therapies on a nano scale rely on engineered nanoparticles designed to package and deliver drugs to exactly where they’re needed.
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Nanoparticles are a form of transport for drugs and can go places drugs wouldn’t be able to go on their own. They make drug delivery more targeted, reducing collateral damage to healthy tissues.
Weaker regulatory standards in the US can impact health everywhere.
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Intuitively, it might seem desirable to speed up access to medicines. But this means more drugs will be approved that may subsequently prove unsafe or ineffective.
Despite dozens of trials internationally, the evidence on medical cannabis is unconvincing.
EPA/ABIR SULTAN
Professor of Bioethics & Medicine, Sydney Health Ethics, Haematologist/BMT Physician, Royal North Shore Hospital and Director, Praxis Australia, University of Sydney