Cancer, genomics and personalised medicine: Modelling oncology's future

Overview

The prevalence of cancer is currently predicted to be higher than ever. Current statistics show 1 in 2 people in the UK and 1 in 2 men/1 in 3 women in the US will experience it at some stage in their lives. And yet the picture for patients is an improving one. The move towards immunotherapies heralds much promise and this is potentially just the beginning of the revolution in cancer treatments. As cancer is understood increasingly not by type, or even tumour type but specific mutation, the era of personalised oncology therapies is arriving, bringing with it unique challenges for developing treatments.

To delve further into this pharmaphorum is pleased to present an exclusive online discussion. Bringing together experts at the cutting edge of this field it aimed to interrogate where we are in terms of this shift towards personalised oncology and mutation-based drug approvals, what this means in terms of the development pathway and looks at the approaches which could (and will) fully evolve the way that cancer treatments are developed in terms of efficacy, approach and outcome.

Focus

This event took place on Tuesday 29^th January at 16:00 GMT (11:00 EST) and covered a number of topics critical to the future of oncology including:

• The changing face of cancer: how do we define it now?
• Personalised medicine in practice – where are we now in cancer?
• What are the implications from these changes for clinical trials?
• How is the shift towards mutation-specific therapies changing the way clinical trials are run?
• What are co-clinical trials and why could they hold the key to answering unmet need in cancer treatment and beyond into broader drug development?
• Modelling for the future of cancer – can this be done for personalised therapies?
• How can personalised or mutation-based therapies be modelled in the lab to set them up for success in the clinic?

To view the debate on demand, please click here or on the button above or below.

Panel

Our senior panel included:

Professor Gordon McVie, Clinical Research Adviser, FIRC Institute of Molecular Oncology (IFOM), Milan and Founding Editor of ecancer.org

Professor Gordon McVie is widely regarded as a leading international authority in the research and treatment of cancer. Having qualified in the nineteen sixties in science and medicine at Edinburgh University, he was appointed Foundation Senior Lecturer at the Cancer Research Campaign Oncology unit at the University of Glasgow in 1975. He trained in the US, and spent sabbaticals in Paris, Sydney and Amsterdam. He is currently Clinical Research Adviser to the FIRC Institute of Molecular Oncology (IFOM), Milan and founding editor of ecancer.org, ecancerpatient and ecancerLatinAmerica - online Open Access free websites. He is now Visiting Professor in Cancer Studies, Kings College London, and Non Executive Director of three start up drug development companies: Ellipses Pharma (UK), Nanovi (Denmark) and ORIL (Australia). From 2003 to 2016 he was Senior Consultant to the European Institute of Oncology, Milan, and Visiting Professor at the University of Milan. From 1989 Professor McVie was Scientific Director and Chief Executive of the Cancer Research Campaign (CRC), which, under his aegis, took over seventy molecules from the lab into clinical trial. He led CRC into a merger with ICRF to form Cancer Research UK, in 2002, and was joint CEO with Sir Paul Nurse.

In the UK he was one of the architects of the Cancer Trials Networks in Scotland, Wales, and England, and was a founding member of the National Cancer Research Institute. Professor McVie is the recipient of numerous awards and has honorary doctorates in science from six universities. He has served on key committees of AACR and ASCO, and on the boards of the National Cancer Institutes of France, Italy, and Holland. He has authored 360 peer-reviewed articles, and contributed to over 35 books.

His commitment to drug discovery and delivery is evidenced by approximately 240 patents granted to CRC scientists under his leadership, several drugs registered including carboplatin, temozolomide and abiraterone and the foundation of 10 biotechnology companies based on CRC intellectual property. His clinical interests, apart from new drug discovery and chemoprevention, are in the management of cancers of the lung, ovary, liver, breast and brain. He is a partner with ecancer.org  in 3 FP7 projects from the European Union, a recently awarded Horizon 2020 project and an IMI project. He was elected as Fellow of the European Association for Cancer Science in 2014, co-chairman of the European Alliance for Personalised Medicine since 2016 and Fellow of the Association of Cancer Physicians in 2017.

Dr. Stefan Jellbauer, Technical Liaison for Translational Applications, Mitra Biotech

Dr Stefan Jellbauer is the Technical Liaison for Translational Applications and works with clients to craft custom solutions for their drug development needs. He supports the Biopharma Business Development side of Mitra Biotech.  After 10 years in academic research he joined Affymetrix/eBioscience, where he worked in the roles of Field Application Scientist and Technical Specialist with Affymetrix and Thermo Fisher Scientific. He joined Mitra Biotech in May 2018. Dr. Jellbauer received his Ph.D.  in Biology from Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich (Germany), focusing on tumor vaccination.  He completed his post-doctoral work at University of California, Irvine studying mucosal immunology and host-pathogen interactions.

Danyi Wen, President & CEO, Shanghai LIDE Biotech

Danyi Wen is President & CEO of Shanghai LIDE, a publically-listed company founded in 2011 to provide services and biomarker products to support personalised precision medicine, which includes subsidiary companies Xian LIDE Biotech and Shanghai LIWEN Clinical Testing Lab. Danyi has an MBA from Suffolk University, and has worked as an Instructor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School (Brigham & Women’s Hospital). She followed this with 12 years of industry experience at companies such as Millenium Pharmaceuticals, Biogen Idec and Shanghai ChemPartner.

Danyi’s current positions include adjunct professor at Beijing Xiehe Hospital and School of Pharmacy of Fudan University; Editor of “Progress in Pharmaceutical Sciences”; associate of Chinese Anti-Cancer Association (Society of Liver, Bile, Pancreatic) and Vice Group Leader of CMBA Tissue Bank Society, PDX Group. She also teaches at Shanghai Technology University

Lakshmi Santhosh Maithel, Client Business Partner, Repositive

Lakshmi Maithel is a Client Business Partner for Repositive's Cancer Models Platform. She advises partner CROs on highlighting unique models, expertise and services as well as improving characterisation data. Prior to joining Repositive, Lakshmi was the Program Director at GenomeAsia 100K - an international consortium sequencing 100,000 genomes from people of Asian descent.

Lakshmi has a Master's in Biotechnology from the University of Pennsylvania and an undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley. She has worked in sales and marketing for Elsevier in addition to writing about scientific topics for the Genetic Literacy Project, Future Medicine and ACP's The Hospitalist.

Dominic Tyer, Creative Director, pharmaphorum (moderator)

Dominic Tyer is a trained journalist and editor with 19 years of pharmaceutical and healthcare publishing experience. He serves as a contributing editor at pharmaphorum media, which facilitates productive engagement for pharma, bringing healthcare together to drive medical innovation. He is also creative director at the company’s specialist healthcare content consultancy, pharmaphorum connect.