Introduction: are current drug development programmes realising the full potential of new agents?

Stephen Rd Johnston,Ajay Bhatanager

doi:10.1186/bcr2749

Abstract

Introduction: are current drug development programmes realising the full potential of new agents?

Highlights

Just like the 2009 Edinburgh Controversies meeting, the final two sessions addressed the question of whether current drug development programmes for new agents in breast cancer are realising their full potential. This time the approach was to assess how various different clinical studies/novel drugs are prioritised by either the pharmaceutical industry or by academic groups and investigators, and in addition how clinical trials in breast cancer are evolving in an era of targeted therapeutics
The Breast Cancer Clinical Studies Group (CSG) coordinates the overall strategy to ensure that there is no overlap of competing studies, at all times aiming to develop a broad-based portfolio of studies across the various subtypes and different stages of breast cancer
Through the Breast Cancer CSG there has been a significant rise in the number of patients recruited into studies, with more than 16,000 recruited in 2009/2010 alone, which represents 30 to 45% of the UK’s incident breast cancer population

Summary

Introduction

Just like the 2009 Edinburgh Controversies meeting, the final two sessions addressed the question of whether current drug development programmes for new agents in breast cancer are realising their full potential. This time the approach was to assess how various different clinical studies/novel drugs are prioritised by either the pharmaceutical industry or by academic groups and investigators, and in addition how clinical trials in breast cancer are evolving in an era of targeted therapeutics.

Results

Conclusion