Personalized Medicine In Oncology And The Implication For Clinical Development

By Jamal Gasmi M.D., Ph.D., Medical Director, Medpace

The notable success of imatinib for the treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia and trastuzumab for the management of HER2-positive breast cancer patients has generated great enthusiasm for the delivery of more effective and safer treatment to patients based on the genetic anomalies harbored by their cancer. Subsequently, the identification of driver mutations and cancer genome sequencing have facilitated the development of novel targeted anticancer agents. Unfortunately, the attempt to replicate the success of imatinib and trastuzumab have been far less successful.

Many challenges remain in developing effective and efficient new targeted therapy agents, identifying the biomarker tests that indicate which patients will be responsive to them, and implementing them in clinical practice.