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As it does every year, Science published its “Breakthrough of the Year” for 2013 in the 20 December 2013 issue of the journal.
Science chose cancer immunotherapy as its Breakthrough of the Year 2013.
In its 20 December 2013 issue, Science published an editorial by its Editor-in-Chief, Marcia McNutt, Ph.D., entitled “Cancer Immunotherapy”. The same issue has a news article by staff writer Jennifer Couzin-Frankel, also entitled “Cancer Immunotherapy”.
As usual, the 20 December 2013 issue of Science contains a Breakthrough of the Year 2013 news section, which in addition to the Breakthrough of the Year itself, also contains articles about several interesting runners-up, ranging from genetic microsurgery using CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat) technology to mini-organs to human cloning to vaccine design.
In the Science editorial and news article, the authors focus on the development and initial successes of two types of immunotherapy:
- Monoclonal antibody (MAb) drugs that target T-cell regulatory molecules, including the approved CTLA4-targeting MAb ipilimumab (Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Yervoy), and the clinical-stage anti-PD-1 agents nivolumab (Bristol-Myers Squibb) and lambrolizumab (Merck).
- Therapy with genetically engineered autologous T cells, known as chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) therapy, such as that being developed by a collaboration between the University of Pennsylvania and Novartis.
The rationale for Science’s selection of cancer immunotherapy as the breakthrough of the year is that after a decades-long process of basic biological research on T cells, immunotherapy products have emerged and–as of this year–have achieved impressive results in clinical trials. And–as pointed out by Dr. McNutt–immunotherapy would constitute a new, fourth modality for cancer treatment, together with the traditional surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy.
However, as pointed out by Dr. McNutt and Ms. Couzin-Frankel, these are still early days for cancer immunotherapy. Key needs include the discovery of biomarkers that can help predict who can benefit from a particular immunotherapy, development of combination therapies that are more potent than single-agent therapies, and that might help more patients, and means for mitigating adverse effects.
Moreover, it will take some time to determine how durable any remissions are, especially whether anti-PD1 agents give durable long-term survival. Finally, although several MAb-based immunotherapies are either approved (in the case of ipilimumab) or well along in clinical trials, CAR T-cell therapies and other adoptive immunotherapies remain experimental.
In addition to the special Science “Breakthrough 2013” section, Nature published a Supplement on cancer immunotherapy in its 19/26 December 2013 issue. This further highlights the growing importance of this field.
Cancer immunotherapy on the Biopharmconsortium Blog
Readers of our Biopharmconsortium Blog are no strangers to recent breakthroughs in cancer immunotherapy. In the case of MAb-based immunotherapies, we have published two summary articles, one in 2012 and the other in 2013. These articles noted that cancer immunotherapy was the “star” of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting in both years.
Our blog also contains articles about CAR therapy, as being developed by the University of Pennsylvania and Novartis and by bluebird bio and Celgene. Moreover, the Biopharmconsortium Blog contains articles on other types of cancer immunotherapies not covered by the Science articles, such as cancer vaccines.
We look forward to further progress in the field of cancer immunotherapy, and to the improved treatments and even cures of cancer patients that may be made possible by these developments.
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