Antidepressants and Pregnancy: Tips from an Expert
Healthy Returns: Drugmakers Release Promising Cancer Drug Data – And AstraZeneca Wins Big
Think a friend or colleague should be getting this newsletter? Share this link with them to sign up.
Good morning! I'm back in New York City after spending the last weekend in Chicago for the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting.
More than 5,000 research abstracts were presented or published at ASCO. They included data on existing drugs, experimental treatments, AI tools and ideas for improving patient care.
Here are some data highlights and executive commentary from the larger companies I follow:
AstraZeneca wins big:
Pfizer shows off its bet on cancer:
Merck, Moderna impress with additional cancer vaccine data:
Bristol Myers Squibb's treatment combo shows promise as first-line treatment for liver cancer:
Johnson & Johnson showcases a more convenient version of Rybrevant:
Eli Lilly presents revamped oncology pipeline:
Feel free to send any tips, suggestions, story ideas and data to Annika at annikakim.Constantino@nbcuni.Com.
Latest in health-care technologyDigital physical therapy tools provide clinical benefits, report finds
Patients with musculoskeletal conditions who like to stay in their pajamas received some welcome news on Wednesday: They can receive meaningful care from the comfort of their homes, according to a new report from the Peterson Health Technology Institute.
PHTI is a nonprofit that conducts independent evaluations of digital health solutions. For its latest report, PHTI reviewed virtual musculoskeletal tools from Hinge Health, Sword Health, Omada Health, DarioHealth, Kaia Health, RecoveryOne, Limber Health and Vori Health.
Musculoskeletal conditions limit a patient's mobility and can affect the joints, bones and muscles. These disorders are often associated with pain, and they can be treated with medication, surgery or a form of rehabilitation like physical therapy.
PHTI said around one in three people in the U.S. Have musculoskeletal conditions, and they account for almost 10% of medical spending in the country, according to a release Wednesday.
The organization set out to evaluate whether existing virtual tools decrease health-care costs or provide meaningful benefits to patients. PHTI found that several of the solutions "offer clinical benefits to patients that are comparable to in-person physical therapy," the release said.
To assess the tools' clinical and economic performance, PHTI said it reviewed more than 2,000 scientific articles and received input from experts and patients.
The organization split the solutions into three categories: physical therapist-guided solutions (Sword, Hinge, Omada, Vori and RecoveryOne), app-based exercise therapy with limited participation from physical therapists (Dario, Kaia) and remote therapeutic monitoring solutions, which are designed to supplement in-person care (Limber).
PHTI said it found that the physical therapist-guided solutions improve patients' functionality and pain in a manner that is comparable to in-person physical therapy. This means that patients who use these solutions from home can expect to see similar results to patients who receive their care in person.
App-based exercise therapy helped improve patients' pain and function, but those tools are not effective enough to replace in-person care, according to the report. Additionally, PHTI said that while evidence for remote therapeutic monitoring tools was limited, they deliver better clinical results in combination with in-person physical therapy compared to in-person therapy alone.
Physical therapist-guided solutions also reduce net spending, according to the report. PHTI said remote therapeutic monitoring tools increase net spending, and there was no pricing data available for app-based exercise therapy.
PHTI said that based on its review, virtual musculoskeletal tools successfully provide "meaningful improvements in pain and function compared with usual care." The virtual tools can also help increase access to care, particularly for patients who are older, live in rural areas or can't easily travel to an in-person clinic, PHTI said.
You can read the full report from PHTI here.
Feel free to send any tips, suggestions, story ideas and data to Ashley at ashley.Capoot@nbcuni.Com.
Can AstraZeneca Make Good On Its Promise?
Smoke exposure from California's wildfires linked to 52,000 early…
Smoke exposure from California's wildfires linked to 52,000 early deaths, study says
Vanda Pharmaceuticals has another suitor
Vanda Pharmaceuticals has another suitor
Up and down the ladder: The latest comings and…
Up and down the ladder: The latest comings and goings
AstraZeneca And Daiichi Sankyo Announce Clinical Milestone In Phase 3 Study Of Datopotamab Deruxtecan Versus Chemotherapy For Lung Cancer
The study evaluated the efficacy and safety of Dato-DXd compared to docetaxel in adult patients with locally advanced or metastatic NSCLC with and without actionable genomic alterations who require systemic therapy following prior treatment.
Results from the global TROPION-Lung01 Phase III trial were announced recently demonstrating that datopotamab deruxtecan (Dato-DXd) significantly improves overall survival compared to chemotherapy in patients with advanced non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
The study evaluated the efficacy and safety of Dato-DXd compared to docetaxel in adult patients with locally advanced or metastatic NSCLC with and without actionable genomic alterations who require systemic therapy following prior treatment.
Lung cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths worldwide.
NSCLC is the most common type, accounting for 80% of diagnosed lung cancer cases. Chemotherapy has long been the standard treatment for advanced NSCLC, but new advancements in targeted therapies are showing promising results in improving overall survival rates.
Although immunotherapy and targeted therapies have shown improvement in outcomes for patients with advanced NSCLC in the first-line setting, many patients eventually require chemotherapy after experiencing disease progression.
Despite its limited effectiveness and known side effects, chemotherapy has traditionally been the last treatment option available for these patients.
Dato-DXd is a novel antibody-drug conjugate that targets trophoblast cell-surface antigen 2 (TROP2) overexpressed in cancer cells. Of note, TROP2 is a protein broadly expressed in most NSCLC tumors.
By delivering a potent cytotoxic agent, topoisomerase I inhibitor, directly to cancer cells, the drug is designed to effectively kill cancer cells while minimizing damage to healthy cells.
The trial included patients with advanced or metastatic NSCLC who had previously received platinum-based chemotherapy and an immune checkpoint inhibitor.
Patients were randomized to receive either Dato-DXd or a chemotherapy regimen consisting of docetaxel.
The experimental Dato-DXd drug had shown significant improvement in survival rates compared to standard chemotherapy in patients enrolled in the TROPION-Lung01 Phase III trial. Statistical significance, however, was not reached.
Additionally, the drug demonstrated a favorable safety profile, with manageable side effects reported by patients.
If approved by regulatory authorities, Dato-DXd could potentially become a new standard of care for patients with this challenging form of lung cancer.
"The improvement in overall survival seen with Dato-DXd coupled with the previously reported clinically meaningful progression-free survival, more than doubling of overall response and prolonged duration of response compared to docetaxel suggest that this TROP2-directed antibody drug conjugate could potentially become an important new treatment for patients with NSCLC in this advanced setting," Ken Takeshita, M.D., Global Head, R&D, Daiichi Sankyo, said in a press release.
"These data will support our ongoing discussions with regulatory authorities globally to potentially bring Dato-DXd to patients as quickly as possible and mark another step forward in creating new standards of care for patients with cancer."
Further research is needed to confirm the efficacy and safety of Dato-DXd in larger patient populations, but the positive results from the TROPION-Lung01 trial offer a promising outlook for the future of advanced NSCLC treatment.
Dato-DXd is currently being studied in over 20 clinical trials to determine its effectiveness and safety in various types of cancer, such as non-small cell lung cancer, triple-negative breast cancer and hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer.
If approved by the FDA, Dato-DXd would be a second-line therapy in NSCLC and available in intravenous form. No TROP-2- directed ADC therapies are currently approved for the treatment of patients with NSCLC.
The FDA has assigned a target action date of December 20th, 2024.
Comments
Post a Comment