During the 60th American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting & Exposition held December 1-4 in San Diego, California, Norman Sharpless, MD, director, National Cancer Institute (NCI), brought attention to several advances made in hematologic malignancies over the past year and highlighted 4 areas of focus going forward.
“Now more than a year into the job, I’ve heard from a lot of stakeholders. I’ve heard from doctors and scientists, patients and advocates, and one clear fact from all those conversations is this: it is a great time to be a cancer scientist and a cancer doctor in the United States,” said Norman Sharpless, MD, director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), as he addressed a crowd at the 60th American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting & Exposition held December 1-4, 2018, in San Diego, California.
Sharpless highlighted numerous recent advancements in the care of hematologic malignancies, including moxetumomab pasudotox-tdfk, a new treatment for hairy cell leukemia, which hasn’t had a new treatment option in 20 years, as well as the 2 chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapies approved in the last year: tisagenlecleucel and axicabtagene ciloleucel.
He also brought attention to 2 NCI-supported trials of both younger and older patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia that identified a chemotherapy-free approach using rituximab and ibrutinib rather than drugs like bendamustine and fludarabine for these patients. “This is really important because we now have a relatively gentle regimen that works really well for these patients,” he said.
Sharpless called the past year an “extraordinary period” for acute myeloid leukemia, which came after decades of limited progress. In the last year and a half, the FDA has approved 8 new drugs for the disease, including 2 isocitrate dehydrogenase inhibitors, 2 Flt-3 inhibitors, and venetoclax.
Advancements like these are a result of detailed, elegant basic science, according to Sharpless. “There’s this great basic science that’s developing in hematologic cancers, and these scientific developments are translating into meaningful therapies for patients,” he said.
However, despite this progress, many will rightly say it’s not enough, said Sharpless, with many of these new therapies being only moderately effective and sometimes not curative. He called these therapies singles and doubles, noting that we still need home runs.
Following a listening tour to hear from stakeholders across the hematologic landscape, Sharpless identified areas that, while they are not new concepts, we need to sharpen our focus on in the next few years. He outlined 4 focus areas:
The Importance of Examining and Preventing Atrial Fibrillation
August 29th 2023At this year’s American Society for Preventive Cardiology Congress on CVD Prevention, Emelia J. Benjamin, MD, ScM, delivered the Honorary Fellow Award Lecture, “The Imperative to Focus on the Prevention of Atrial Fibrillation,” as the recipient of this year’s Honorary Fellow of the American Society for Preventive Cardiology award.
Listen
Promoting Equity in Public Health: Policy, Investment, and Community Engagement Solutions
June 28th 2022On this episode of Managed Care Cast, we speak with Georges C. Benjamin, MD, executive director of the American Public Health Association, on the core takeaways of his keynote session at AHIP 2022 on public health policy and other solutions to promote equitable health and well-being.
Listen
Collecting SDOH Data Can Assess Risk of Medical Nonadherence, Improve HEI and Star Ratings
April 18th 2024At the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) 2024 annual meeting, a panel of presenters explored changes coming to Medicare that incorporate social determinants of health (SDOH) data to improve patient and health system outcomes.
Read More
Gene and Cell Therapies Hold Potential—but How Can Payers Manage Their Costs?
April 18th 2024Presenters at the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) 2024 annual meeting discussed the current promise and future potential of gene and cell therapies, as well as payer management strategies for these costly treatments.
Read More