Buzz is building around a monoclonal antibody known as CS1. The drug is also known as HuLuc63 and Elotuzumab. A research hematologist I spoke with today Dr. Januario Castro had recently returned from ASCO and was very excited about this new drug. He called it rituxan for myeloma and reported promising results and best activity of any new myeloma candidate so far. The drug appears to work by NK-mediated ADCC so says an article in Clinical Cancer Research in 2008.

Ongoing research was presented today at ASCO: Alimta consolidation chemotherapy improves survival in lung cancer patients. This was presented as an abstract last year (outcome reported back then was improved progression free survival) and makes a return visit this year with a survival story. A base hit turns into a triple: there have not been that many therapies that prolong survival in lung cancer. The benefit was three months more survival though these numbers got used against us in the Avastin setting so let's just call it a clinically meaningful improvement in survival.

Nexavar for melanoma looks like it's done according to a press release on the phase III clinical trial. Though the data is slated to be released at an "upcoming conference " researchers are now reporting a lack of efficacy for the drug combined with chemotherapy in advanced melanoma. Don't hold your breath for the journal publication though there are quite a few papers lamenting the dearth of "negative results" being published out there.

ODAC is a pretty skeptical bunch of docs. If you will recall they recommended that the FDA not approve Avastin for breast cancer about a year ago. The FDA went ahead and did it anyway. I have personally not used a lot of Avastin in the setting of advanced disease for this reason: I trust ODAC more than FDA. My old mentor Dr. Otis Brawley still occupies a position on that group the Oncology Drug Advisory Committee. This is why ODAC's recommendation of approval of Avastin for glioblastoma is such big news. What is the data?

You read it here first: the marketplace has taken the place of academic research centers when it comes to testing the relative worthiness of new drug treatments at least in oncology and hematology. We used to do comparative studies in oncology: the great studies of the 1980s and 1990s trying to figure out the best way to treat lymphoma or breast cancer were very instructive to us clinicians (even those of us who were in high school when they came out!) They don't seem to do studies like that any more.

Sorafenib is an oral multiple kinase inhibitor that targets both tumor-cell proliferation and angiogenesis. Approved in December 2005 for advanced renal cell carcinoma it is being further developed by the manufacturer for metastatic melanoma advanced primary liver cancer and NSCLC. Sorafenib has established potent anti-tumor activity in preclinical xenograft models of different tumor types by virtue of its anti-angiogenic anti-proliferative and proapoptotic effects.

A study published in this month's issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology suggests that genetic tests could be used to select candidates for Genentech and Roche’s groundbreaking Avastin cancer drug. The news is likely to be interpreted as good for patients but not necessarily so for sales of the drug. The scientists undertaking the research state that two genetic markers have been identified which would appear to constitute a relationship between improved survival in female patients with breast cancer being administered Avastin.

Bevacizumab plus sorafenib promising for ovarian cancer Phase I trial reported in JCO July 2008