The American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual conference

All of us with a passing interest in cancer drug announcements have probably noticed the American Society of Oncology’s annual conference is taking place in Chicago. This seems to be the forum where results from clinical trials are published. I took a look at its agenda and it is obviously a huge thing on the annual calendar for big pharma, clinical leads and oncologists alike. On successive days we have had good news.

Today’s caught my eye. It’s the results from early stage trials of an experimental drug, with only the code name GRWD5769 given to it so far. It’s a ERAP1 inhibitor, given alongside the immunotherapy treatment cemiplimab. Not come across either ERAP1 inhibitors or cemiplimab before, but if the early results continue, these may be making their way into an oncology unit near you in a few years time.

Yesterday had a development for pancreatic cancer, something I care about because my brother in law was diagnosed of it and died a horrible messy death a few months later. The day before was another monoclonal antibody, amivantamab, given in injection form, also with good results. 

As a (so far) success story of immunotherapy, I feel we are on the cusp of major breakthrough with these treatments. I hope one day we will be able to look back on chemo in the same way we look at some of the remedies used in the past. It’s an exciting time for oncology and I hope we all live long enough to benefit from it.