Every cancer is different. Grouping cancer mutations by their structure and function could help make treatments more personalized.
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Articles on Cancer drugs
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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?
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.
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.
Most cancer research has been done in Europe, there’s minimal data on African populations.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
NSW is about to embark on the largest and most definitive clinical trial ever of medicinal cannabis for chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting.
The well-used drug clomipramine could target tumour cells and leave normal cells healthy – if scientists could get enough evidence for it.
Should new understandings of how cancers develop and could be targeted mean we should change the way the scheme registers cancer drugs?
The cost of cancer drugs is killing patients and it needs to stop
The US National Cancer Institute screened 35,000 plants, but one particular sample collected from the bark of the Pacific Yew tree provided what is now one of the most highly prescribed cancer drugs.
Most of us would agree that cancer drugs should be listed on the PBS, no matter how dear. But our health system can’t afford all of them. How then are decisions about which drugs to subsidise made?
Hope, fear, and desperation, along with the unique characteristics of the cancer drug market, create a “perfect storm” that continues to drive up prices for cancer drugs.
Top contributors
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Senior Research Fellow, Bioethics, University of Sydney
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Associate Professor of the Sydney Pharmacy School, University of Sydney
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Postdoctoral Researcher, Sydney Health Ethics, University of Sydney
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Professor of Health Economics, Flinders University
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Professorial Research Fellow. School of Psychology, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Adelaide
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Assistant Professor, Bond University
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Professor of Bioethics & Medicine, Sydney Health Ethics, Haematologist/BMT Physician, Royal North Shore Hospital and Director, Praxis Australia, University of Sydney
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Senior lecturer, University of South Australia
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Clinical Professorial Research Fellow, The University of Queensland
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Professor of Health Economics, Deputy Director of CHERE, University of Technology Sydney
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Professor of Health Economics, University of Technology Sydney
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Professor in Clinical Paediatric Oncology, University of Birmingham
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Bioethicist, The University of Queensland
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PhD student in Biology, University of Rochester
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PhD Candidate, University of Sydney
