Christine and I will be very busy this weekend posting the latest announcements coming out of ASCO in Orlando. We have set up a special message board for this event.

The main theme of this years event is targeted therapies so we all are very excited.

Remember, Cable and Network news stations will give you only the highlights and may distort the facts. We will be posting in depth announcements.

Below is a pre-event article from the San Francisco Cronicle.

Warmest Regards
Joe




Cancer research update
Florida conference will influence flow of funds, use of drugs
- Bernadette Tansey, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, May 13, 2005


The huge cancer research conference that starts today in Orlando could change prescribing practices for millions of patients and shift millions of dollars toward the biotechnology and drug firms that have positive data on their products.

That said, most of the advances to be announced at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, which starts today, will come in small increments -- extra survival time measured in months at best rather than the years that cancer doctors and their patients hope for.

But those modest steps forward signal that a new approach to cancer treatment is steadily, if slowly, gaining traction.

Biotechnology firms, now joined by big drugmakers like Pfizer Inc., are pinpointing molecular differences between tumors and normal cells. They then try to target those tumor mechanisms in a more finely focused attack than the blunderbuss approach of older chemotherapy drugs, which are also toxic to normal cells.

South San Francisco's Genentech Inc., the front-runner in this targeted approach, will take center stage this year with data from 150 clinical trials that include increases in survival time for some of the most intractable strains of cancers, such as lung and breast cancer. But the field is broadening, and scores of other companies are showcasing their progress in targeted cancer drugs.

"Targeted therapy is coming into its own and becoming a mainstay of therapy,'' said Genentech's president of product development, Susan Desmond- Hellmann.

Oncologists and investors alike are eager to scrutinize the effects of two Genentech drugs, Avastin and Herceptin, in different groups of breast cancer patients. But other firms, many of them in the Bay Area, will share the limelight, including Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Emeryville, Abgenix Inc. of Fremont, and Telik Inc. of Palo Alto.

Initial results have already been released from many of the studies, but the conference could yield details on side effects and other factors that substantially affect the usefulness of drugs, said Dr. Alan Venook, a gastrointestinal cancer expert at UCSF.

Venook said the very success of targeted therapies like Avastin is creating new dilemmas for the health care system, because the new drugs are so expensive -- a topic that will be discussed at the conference. "We're approaching the point of no return for what we can afford,'' said Venook.

Genentech was the star of the oncology conference two years ago, with Avastin's first success in colon cancer. Avastin is designed to thwart the growth of tumors by preventing new blood vessels from forming to nourish them. It was the first drug using that strategy to work. That milestone encouraged other companies to develop drugs to interfere with the process of blood-vessel development, known as angiogenesis.

This year, Avastin provides another proof of the promise of targeted therapies -- showing that they may work in multiple types of cancer. Genentech will announce details of Avastin's benefit in two more cancers -- lung and breast cancer.

This crossover effectiveness may transform diagnosis, changing the way cancer is defined. Rather than focusing on the organ in which the disease originated, researchers look for the molecular mechanisms that may be common to many different cancers.

Drugs that target those common mechanisms could vastly expand potential profits. Avastin, which had sales of $675.9 million in its first full 12 months on the market, is now predicted to top $2 billion by 2007, based on preliminary results that have already been announced in lung and breast cancer.

Officials of the oncology group plan to highlight reports on Avastin and other anti-angiogenesis drugs today. Results will also be announced on an experimental Pfizer drug called AG-013736, tested in kidney cancer, and the drug candidate PTK/ZK from Schering and Novartis, which was tried in colorectal cancer.

Also included in the category is thalidomide, which caused severe birth defects in the 1950s when it was taken by pregnant women in Europe.

The damage to fetuses may have resulted from the inhibition of blood- vessel growth, which led its manufacturer, Celgene Corp of New Jersey, to test thalidomide in multiple myeloma, a bone marrow cancer.

While conference officials are front-loading news about the targeted therapies at the beginning of the five-day meeting, they are also featuring studies on the best combinations of chemotherapy drugs, the impact of diet in cancer and even the effects of over-the-counter mainstays like aspirin.

Although much of the conference excitement centers on targeted therapies, such drugs usually work only in combination with chemotherapy. Other studies are pursuing how to improve chemotherapy regimens and pair the best ones with a targeted drug.

Although the early gains from targeted cancer drugs have been modest, they can suggest refinements yielding greater advances in the future, said Dr. Amato Giaccia, a professor of radiation oncology at the Stanford School of Medicine.

"It's these incremental steps that will ultimately translate into bigger steps,'' he said.



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Bay Area companies with drug news at the conference
Genentech Inc.

South San Francisco: Avastin, tested in lung and breast cancer; Herceptin in breast cancer.

Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Emeryville: Sorafenib, tested in kidney cancer.

Telik Inc.

Palo Alto: Telcyta, in lung cancer.

Abgenix Inc.

Fremont: Panitumumab, in colorectal cancer

E-mail Bernadette Tansey at btansey@sfchronicle.com.

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URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file...UGR6CMH3719.DTL


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©2005 San Francisco Chronicle