Conference Presentation, Panel
A Journey to the Cutting Edge of Bioscience: Cancer as a Case Study
Milken InstituteMargaret Anderson, Greg Friberg, Douglas Lowy, Fouad Namouni, Ellen Sigal, Nikhil Wagle, Angie Wilson, Sebastian Hermelin
- Cancer mortality rates in melanoma are projected to decline at a faster pace than any other cancer type, with this trend expected to be replicated in other diseases through continued contributions from prevention, screening, and treatment.
- The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is anticipated to maintain reliance on investigators and cooperative groups to select candidate treatments for late-phase clinical trials.
- Advancements in patient disease fingerprinting and longitudinal monitoring are expected to become increasingly profound, while the field awaits unknown timeframes for transforming breakthrough discoveries into transformational medicine.
- Drug developers are predicted to rapidly advance therapies into primary or secondary prevention, despite the significant difficulty in proving efficacy at these earlier stages.
- Patient partnerships with researchers and physicians, alongside improved data sharing trends among academic institutions, are expected to accelerate knowledge generation and facilitate discoveries in rare subgroups through patient-owned data aggregation.
- Technologies such as wearable devices and strategies like "Count Me In" are expected to bring treatment directly to patients, particularly in rural areas, and allow clinical trial participation regardless of patient location.
- Machine learning and new technologies are being invested in to improve predictability, with potential positive outcomes potentially visible within the next year, alongside a need for cross-disciplinary crosstalk to generate future insights.
- Efforts to improve preclinical animal model predictability will require investments from all industry players, while spreading best practices for common pediatric cancers to community settings is expected to optimize patient care.
- Real-world evidence and data are expected to enhance the matching of patient populations to clinical trials, though the regulatory environment and standards must catch up to the current speed of discovery in rare diseases.
- The outlook posits that patients will gain access to transformational medicines provided they can engage in development, with the field not considered to be moving too quickly relative to patient needs.