Steep­est de­cline in US can­cer mor­tal­i­ty ever record­ed, study finds

De­clin­ing smok­ing rates, rapid di­ag­no­sis, and new­er treat­ments are thaw­ing mor­tal­i­ty rates for can­cer, which on­ly lags be­hind heart dis­ease as the biggest killer in the Unit­ed States — re­searchers sug­gest­ed in a new study on Wednes­day.

The largest-ever one-year de­cline in the US can­cer death rate — dri­ven pri­mar­i­ly by di­min­ish­ing lung can­cer mor­tal­i­ty — was a 2.2% drop from 2016 to 2017, ac­cord­ing to the Amer­i­can Can­cer So­ci­ety (ACS) re­port, which cal­cu­lat­ed an over­all drop of 29% in US can­cer rates from 1991 to 2017.

The de­cline in mor­tal­i­ty over the 26-year pe­ri­od has been large­ly steady due to long-term drops in death rates in the four most com­mon can­cer types: lung, col­orec­tal, breast, and prostate, al­though progress in re­duc­ing col­orec­tal, breast, and prostate can­cers has slowed, the re­searchers found, not­ing that this works out to more than 2.9 mil­lion deaths avoid­ed since 1991 when the mor­tal­i­ty rate was at its peak.

“(T)reat­ment break­throughs have al­so con­tributed, such as those for hematopoi­et­ic and lym­phoid ma­lig­nan­cies in both chil­dren and adults, and more re­cent­ly check­point block­ade im­munother­a­pies and tar­get­ed ther­a­pies for metasta­t­ic melanoma,” they wrote.

Pe­ter Bach, di­rec­tor of Memo­r­i­al Sloan Ket­ter­ing’s cen­ter for health pol­i­cy and out­comes, took is­sue with at­tribut­ing the de­cline in can­cer mor­tal­i­ty to new med­i­cines in the study led by ACS’ Re­bec­ca Siegel.

The study does not test this hy­poth­e­sis, the renowned re­searcher and epi­demi­ol­o­gist wrote on Twit­ter. “Epi­demi­ol­o­gy may be opaque but it is not opin­ion.”

Source: Twit­ter, 2020

Click on the im­age to see the full-sized ver­sion

On av­er­age, the death rate has fall­en by 1.5% per year be­tween 2008 and 2017,  Siegel et al cal­cu­lat­ed.

“Nev­er­the­less, progress is slow­ing for can­cers that are amenable to ear­ly de­tec­tion through screen­ing (ie, breast can­cer, prostate can­cer, and CRC), and sub­stan­tial racial and ge­o­graph­ic dis­par­i­ties per­sist for high­ly pre­ventable can­cers, such as those of the cervix and lung,” the au­thors wrote.

“In­creased in­vest­ment in both the eq­ui­table ap­pli­ca­tion of ex­ist­ing can­cer con­trol in­ter­ven­tions and ba­sic and clin­i­cal re­search to fur­ther ad­vance treat­ment op­tions would un­doubt­ed­ly ac­cel­er­ate progress against can­cer.”

In 2016, the Unit­ed States spent near­ly twice as much as 10 high-in­come coun­tries on med­ical care and per­formed less well on many pop­u­la­tion health out­comes, da­ta shows.

And al­though the US has low­er-than-av­er­age mor­tal­i­ty rates for can­cer, it does have high­er than av­er­age rates in the oth­er caus­es of mor­tal­i­ty ver­sus coun­tries that are sim­i­lar in size and wealth (based on GDP and GDP per capi­ta), ac­cord­ing to an analy­sis con­duct­ed by The Pe­ter­son Cen­ter on Health­care and the Kaiser Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion.

Source: The Pe­ter­son Cen­ter on Health­care & KFF, 2020

Click on the im­age to see the full-sized ver­sion

These cat­e­gories ac­count­ed for near­ly 74% of all deaths in the Unit­ed States in 2015, ac­cord­ing to the da­ta com­piled.

“My biggest con­cern, how­ev­er, is that the na­tion is so hy­per-fo­cused on can­cer (as re­flect­ed in (the) dis­pro­por­tion­ate amount of R&D in on­col­o­gy space) that it’s ig­nor­ing the alarm­ing fact that over­all life (US) ex­pectan­cy is in de­cline,” health econ­o­mist Joshua Co­hen wrote in re­sponse to Bach’s com­ments on Twit­ter.

Forge Bi­o­log­ics’ cGMP Com­pli­ant and Com­mer­cial­ly Vi­able Be­spoke Affin­i­ty Chro­matog­ra­phy Plat­form

Forge Biologics has developed a bespoke affinity chromatography platform approach that factors in unique vector combinations to streamline development timelines and assist our clients in efficiently entering the clinic. By leveraging our experience with natural and novel serotypes and transgene conformations, we are able to accelerate affinity chromatography development by nearly 3-fold. Many downstream purification models are serotype-dependent, demanding unique and time-consuming development strategies for each AAV gene therapy product1. With the increasing demand to propel AAV gene therapies to market, platform purification methods that support commercial-scale manufacturing of high-quality vectors with excellent safety and efficacy profiles are essential.

Cy­to­ki­net­ics’ ALS drug fails PhI­II, leav­ing the biotech with a sin­gle late-stage prospect

Cytokinetics’ candidate for the muscle disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, failed a Phase III trial, the Bay Area biotech announced Friday morning.

At a second interim analysis of the trial, an independent review committee recommended that Cytokinetics discontinue its COURAGE-ALS trial for reldesemtiv, as it “found no evidence of effect” compared to placebo on the primary or key secondary endpoints.

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CHMP gives thumbs-up for We­govy use in ado­les­cents, along with nine new drug rec­om­men­da­tions

The European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) recommended nine drugs for approval this week while also giving thumbs up for six expanded indications, including Novo Nordisk’s approved obesity medication Wegovy for younger people. Wegovy is already approved as an obesity treatment in the EU for adults, and the new indication would allow prescriptions for adolescents aged 12 and older.

Mathai Mammen, FogPharma's next CEO

Math­ai Mam­men hands in J&J's R&D keys to lead Greg Ver­dine’s Fog­Phar­ma 

In the early 1990s, Mathai Mammen was a teaching assistant in Greg Verdine’s Science B46 course at Harvard. In June, the former R&D head at Johnson & Johnson will succeed Verdine as CEO, president and chair of FogPharma, the same month the seven-year-old biotech kickstarts its first clinical trial.

After leading R&D at one of the largest drugmakers in the world, taking the company through more than half a dozen drug approvals in the past few years, not to mention a Covid-19 vaccine race, Mammen departed J&J last month and will take the helm of a Cambridge, MA biotech attempting to go after what Verdine calls the “true emperor of all oncogenes” — beta-catenin.

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Sen­ate Fi­nance Com­mit­tee lobs more bi­par­ti­san pres­sure on­to PBMs

Congress is honing in on how it wants to overhaul the rules of the road for pharmacy benefit managers, with a Senate Finance Committee hearing Thursday serving as the latest example of the Hill’s readiness to make changes to how pharma middlemen operate.

While pledging to ensure patients and pharmacies “don’t get a raw deal,” Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-OR) laid out the beginning of what looks like a major bipartisan effort — moves the PBM industry is likely to challenge vigorously.

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Nicklas Westerholm, Egetis Therapeutics CEO

Ac­qui­si­tion talks on­go­ing for Swedish rare dis­ease biotech Egetis, shares up al­most 40%

Shares of the Sweden-based rare disease biotech Egetis Therapeutics skyrocketed on Thursday afternoon as the company said it’s engaged in “ongoing discussion” with external parties regarding a “potential acquisition.”

Egetis confirmed rumors with a statement on Thursday while noting that there is no certainty that a takeover offer will be made.

Nonetheless, the possibility of an acquisition has shot up Egetis’ share price. By the afternoon on Thursday, its stock price was {$EGTX.ST} up over 38%. An Egetis spokesperson told Endpoints News in an email that it has no further comments.

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Lu­pus drug de­vel­op­ment mar­ket heat­ing up, while FDA links with ad­vo­ca­cy group to fur­ther ac­cel­er­ate re­search

The long-underserved systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) market is suddenly buzzing with treatment possibilities. Less than two years after AstraZeneca’s approval for Saphnelo — the first new SLE drug in a decade and joining just one other approved in GSK’s Benlysta – the pipeline of potential drugs numbers in the dozens.

Although most are very early stage — Spherix Global Insights estimates five in Phase II/III — the pharma R&D enthusiasm is catching on among doctors, patients and advocacy groups. On Wednesday, the Lupus Research Alliance and the FDA formed a novel private-public partnership called Lupus Accelerating Breakthroughs Consortium (Lupus ABC) to help advance lupus clinical trial success.

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Austin biotech Mol­e­c­u­lar Tem­plates lays off more than 100 staffers as pipeline nar­rows

Molecular Templates is ridding itself of a Phase I HER2 asset and fine-tuning its pipeline to focus on three programs and a preclinical Bristol Myers Squibb collaboration. With the narrowed scope on its so-called engineered toxin bodies, the Austin, TX biotech is laying off about half of its staff.

That’s a little more than 100 employees, per an SEC filing. Molecular’s layoffs, approved by its board Wednesday, add to the dozens of pullbacks in the industry in the first three months of 2023.

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Aptinyx eval­u­ates fu­ture of the com­pa­ny fol­low­ing two failed tri­als, 60% lay­offs

This year has been tough for Aptinyx — two failed trials, a 60% cut in its workforce, and now the company has brought on a firm to help evaluate the future of the company.

The press release noted it’s working with the firm Ladenburg Thalmann as its financial advisor to assist in exploring and evaluating “strategic alternatives” — a process that a growing group of struggling biotechs has embarked on, sometimes ending in a merger, asset sale or wind-down.

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