Download this abstract now
You'll also receive future publications in the series. We will not share your information with any other parties.
Medelis: How has the FDA responded?
Dr. Von Hoff: I think they’re encouraging this. Frankly, everybody should be encouraging it, because it establishes criteria for patient selection, which in turn optimizes chances of success.
Medelis: What kind of feedback are you getting from national and international groups?
Dr. Von Hoff: Obviously, we are not the only ones pursuing this strategy.
Medelis: What’s the real promise and potential of this approach? Can it help win the fight against cancer?
Dr. Von Hoff: People say we have lost the war on cancer and it is so discouraging to the people who deliver the care every day, the people who are seeing those curves turn around.
The fact is that the rising tide of cancer deaths hasn’t just been stemmed – it’s been turned around. Mortality, in terms of absolute number of deaths, has been down for two years in a row. It should have been going up like a rocket because we’re all aging.
Medelis: Are investors and sponsors starting to see big opportunity, then, because the field really has turned a corner?
Dr. Von Hoff: Yes, and I have direct evidence of this. The bottom line for me is I will never take another drug into patients, ever, unless I know the genetic or genomic context of vulnerability. Why? Because I’ve tasted high success.
We just need to keep working incredibly hard to find the contexts of vulnerability in the more common tumors. This whole idea of finding the context of vulnerability — it’s so gratifying. It’s a way of truly helping people who seemed to have reached a dead end.
* * *
Download "Context of Vulnerability in Oncology Drug Development" now
We'll send you a link to download this abstract along with past interviews in our Peer Perspectives in Oncology series. We will also send you an email when we publish future interviews. Please note that we will not share this information with any third parties; we will use it solely to deliver future abstracts in the series.
