Oncology

Drug and diagnostic approvals and biosimilars news were popular with readers.

How the pandemic has accelerated innovation, and how CVS Health is preparing to delivery vaccines for COVID-19.

The biosimilar to Rituxan is expected to erode market share of the mainstay cancer drug for Roche.

The second mRNA vaccine, which does not need the extreme refrigeration of the Pfizer product, began rolling out of a warehouse in Mississippi early Sunday. Friday brought other late-year approvals in cancer treatment.

Prostate cancer is often “indolent,” so it can be monitored and not treated right away.

After positive Phase 3 trial results, Karyopharm Therapeutics expects FDA to clear Xpovio.

A filing for a bispecific antibody, and more time after a therapy gets more responses.

The continuous battle in cancer research has unfortunately fallen a bit to the backseat due to healthcare's main focus on beating COVID-19 wildfires. To bring its needed attention back up on the ladder, Marie Lamont, president and COO of Inteliquet, a clinical trial software company, shares what took place in the drop of oncology-related activity and what can be done to improve.

FDA approves several drugs to treat rare conditions in both cancer and metabolic diseases.

Public health policies and treatment advances have made a difference.

Radiation oncologists across the country met virtually with members of Congress last week to urge lawmakers to pass legislation that will safeguard access to high-quality, value-based healthcare for people with cancer.

Therapies that target lung cancer at the molecular level are proliferating — and so are the biomarkers for guiding their use.

In the early going, patients seeking the expensive, customized cancer treatments called CAR-T cell therapy had to go to an academic medical center. But that’s changing, as Duncan Allen, M.H.A., of the community cancer network OneOncology explains.

Two newly approved antibody-drug conjugates and changes in radiation therapy lead the way.

FDA approves new uses for companion diagnostics, while Janssen seeks a new indication for Xarelto.

Gilead's Veklury gets full approval; AstraZeneca's Tagrisso heads toward second indication in NSCLC; another use for experimental antifungal therapy.

The Johns Hopkins professor and new MHE editorial advisory board member lauds the effects of the Affordable Care Act but holds out for a program that “gets every human being the healthcare that every human being deserves,” in this second part of a four-part series.

COVID-19 is certainly important. But oncologists, people with cancer, and complex ecosystem of cancer care in the U.S. are grappling with other important issues such as reimbursement, distorted incentives, the implications of the massive amount of data that is available, and, of course, high costs and prices. Included are thoughts from five experts on these challenges and how they might be met.

Financial Toxicity is a growing concern for many cancer patients and caregivers, and with the continued rise in treatment costs, it can no longer be ignored.

Actions from FDA this week include approval of a second targted treatment for a Duchenne muscular dystrophy mutation, and filings in COVID-19 and blood disorders.

Underrepresentation of blacks in clinical trials is garnering special attention.

The fast-evolving field of precision medicine offers the promise of more effective treatments and better outcomes, and it’s time that we collaborate to keep outdated clinical and reimbursement practices from slowing it down.

FDA approves Merck's Keytruda for certain patients with metastatic colorectal cancer a month after study results were presented at ASCO.

An off-the-shelf version of CAR-T therapy that uses the immune system’s natural killer cells is a possibility. But the high price of CAR-T shows some doubts about how widely it can be used.

During the American Society of Clinical Oncology 2020 Annual Meeting, Flatiron Health, Foundation Medicine, and Genentech presented plans for the Prospective Clinico-Genomic study (PCG), a low-interventional pilot that will use a technology-enabled prospective data collection platform to simplify data collection for patients with lung cancer being treated through clinical trials. The idea is collect blood samples using Foundation Medicine’s liquid biopsy assay and analyze the results through Flatiron’s platform, to see if genomic changes can be detected over the course of cancer treatment. Bobby Green, MD, chief medical officer for Flatiron Health, spoke with Managed Healthcare Executive®.

During the American Society of Clinical Oncology 2020 Annual Meeting, Flatiron Health, Foundation Medicine, and Genentech presented plans for the Prospective Clinico-Genomic study (PCG), a low-interventional pilot that will use a technology-enabled prospective data collection platform to simplify data collection for patients with lung cancer being treated through clinical trials.