During last week´s ESMO Congress celebrated in Madrid 08 – 12 September, oncology channel ecancer TV interviewed Elena Garralda, Executive Director of the Research Unit for Molecular Therapy of Cancer (UITM) – “la Caixa”, and Principal Investigator of VHIO´s Early Clinical Drug Development Group, as well as Cristina Saura, Principal Investigator of VHIO´s Breast Cancer and Melanoma Group.
Relating to her talk entitled Accelerated clinical evaluation of drug combinations based on biological insights that she delivered during an ESMO-EACR Joint Symposium: Preclinical models for developing combination therapeutics, Elena discusses the complexities of cancer and the current barriers standing in the way of further improving outcomes for patients. She calls for a better framework and system in order to facilitate both the selection and more effective development of novel drug combinations.
Highlighting the importance of international collaborations and partnerships between academia and industry in the design and implementation of these new pairings, she also notes that a better genomic understanding of tumour origins and vulnerabilities may reveal the pathways to be targeted, and better predict the cancer subgroups that would be most likely to respond.
To access this ecancer TV interview click here.
In a second VHIO interview ecancer talks with Cristina Saura about the results and outcomes of the LORELEI trial, which she presented during a Proffered Paper Session on Breast Cancer during the ESMO Congress: LORELEI: A phase II randomized, double-blind study of neoadjuvant letrozole (LET) plus taselisib versus LET plus placebo (PLA) in postmenopausal patients (pts) with ER+/HER2-negative early breast cancer.
Carried out in essential collaboration with academic partners the Breast International Group (BIG), SOLTI Breast Cancer Research Group, and the Austrian Breast & Colorectal Cancer Study Group (ABCSG), and conducted in 85 sites across the world, the study assessed the efficacy of adding taselisib to letrozole before surgery for the treatment of patients with operable early estrogen receptor positive and HER2-negative breast cancer.
She also describes the pathways and intended action of targeting PI3K, and how these findings are leading to a phase III trial called SANDPIPER.
Click here to watch this interview.
The LORELEI study was also selected by ESMO for its 2017 Congress Media Programme – please click here to read ESMO´s press release.
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