News

Two agents with contrasting mechanisms of actions exert synergistic effects while limiting tumor blood supply in ovarian cancer. Patient enrollment began this month (October 2014) for a new phase 1b/2 clinical study1 to evaluate this novel combination with the VDA fosbretabulin plus pazopanib.

Production of the prostate cancer drug radium-223 (Xofigo) has been suspended indefinitely by its maker, Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals, due to a manufacturing problem. The company confirmed the manufacturing suspension in a statement released to Targeted Oncology.

The FDA has expanded the approval of Lymphoseek (technetium Tc 99m tilmanocept) injection to include sentinel lymph node (SLN) detection for breast cancer and melanoma as well as lymphatic mapping in solid tumors.

The FDA has assigned a priority review designation to palbociclib in combination with letrozole as a frontline treatment for postmenopausal patients with ER-positive, HER2-negative advanced breast cancer.

The FDA has approved bortezomib (Velcade) in combination with rituximab, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, and prednisone (VR-CAP) as a frontline treatment for patients with mantle cell lymphoma.

The FDA has approved NEPA (Akynzeo) to treat nausea and vomiting in patients undergoing chemotherapy as part of their cancer treatment.

The FDA has assigned a priority review designation to blinatumomab as a treatment for adult patients with Philadelphia chromosome-negative (Ph-) relapsed/refractory B-precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

The FDA has scheduled an ODAC advisory hearing to discuss the NDA for panobinostat in combination with bortezomib and dexamethasone for patients with multiple myeloma who have received at least one prior therapy.

To gain further insight into AR-V7 and resistance to AR-targeting agents, Targeted Oncology interviewed the lead author, Emmanuel S. Antonarakis, MBBCh, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins Medicine.

The highly selective ALK inhibitor AP26113 has been granted a Breakthrough Therapy Designation by the FDA for the treatment of patients with ALK-positive metastatic NSCLC who received prior treatment with crizotinib.

The FDA has assigned a priority review designation to nivolumab for pretreated patients with advanced melanoma, setting an action date for the drug as March 30, 2015.

The 12 month countdown to the adoption of ICD-10 has begun.

To gain further insight into the expanded approval of this agent, Targeted Oncology interviewed Tomasz M. Beer, MD, a co-principal investigator on the PREVAIL trial.

Last week, the FDA approved pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for the treatment of patients with advanced or unresectable melanoma following progression on prior therapies.

The combination of ramucirumab and FOLFIRI significantly improved overall survival and progression-free survival compared with chemotherapy alone as a second-line treatment for patients with mCRC.

Bristol-Myers Squibb has filed a lawsuit over Merck’s newly approved immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab, contending that the much-heralded PD-1 inhibitor will infringe upon patents that Bristol-Myers holds on the groundbreaking technology.

The FDA has expanded the approval for enzalutamide (Xtandi) to include the treatment of men with chemotherapy-naive metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC).

This activity is supported by an educational grant from Eli Lilly.

A guideline for the treatment of men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) has been issued by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and Cancer Care Ontario (CCO).

The FDA has approved pembrolizumab (Keytruda) as a treatment for patients with advanced or unresectable melanoma following progression on prior therapies.

Cabozantinib (Cometriq) failed to significantly extend overall survival (OS) compared with prednisone as a treatment for men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC).

A series of papers have been published in the journal Nature in which researchers conducted detailed comparisons of the worm, fly, and human genomes using data from the ENCODE and modENCODE projects.

Advaxis and Merck have entered into a clinical trial collaboration agreement to evaluate the combination of two novel immunotherapies for the treatment of patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer.

The FDA has approved eltrombopag (Promacta) as a treatment for patients with severe aplastic anemia (SAA) following an insufficient response to immunosuppressive therapy, based on data from an open-label, single-arm phase II trial.

Researchers from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Network have proposed a molecular classification system that separates gastric cancers into four subtypes.

A New Drug Application has been submitted to the FDA for palbociclib plus letrozole as a frontline treatment for postmenopausal women with ER-positive, HER2-negative advanced breast cancer.

A preliminary analysis has shown that eribulin mesylate (Haloven) failed to meet its primary endpoint of improving overall survival in pre-treated patients with advanced NSCLC.

A new study has recommended priority targets for immunotherapy in epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) by profiling the expression of certain tumor-associated antigens (TAA), called MAGE cancer-testis antigens (CTA), in a large panel of tumor samples.