A new research institute at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center is intended to create effective new cancer medications and corresponding diagnostics using fundamental discoveries and modern technologies, according to Raymond DuBois, MD, PhD, MD Anderson’s executive vice president and provost.
“The Institute for Applied Cancer Science will exploit the enormous opportunities provided by recent truly transformative scientific and technological advances to improve the appallingly low rate of success in the nation’s current cancer drug development system,” Ronald DePinho, MD, president of MD Anderson, said.
“Only 5% to 10% of potential cancer drugs make it from initial discovery all the way to patients as approved treatments. And more than half of those fail in phase 3 clinical trials, the final step of development. That’s costly not just economically but costly to patients who are subjected to largely ineffective treatments,” DePinho said. “Improving this unacceptable performance requires that we hit the reset button and develop a new organizational model that systematically secures the knowledge needed to fully understand key targets and develop a clear clinical path for new therapies.”
Cultural divide is “the valley of death” for drug development
The institute’s leaders have coined the phrase, “the valley of death” when referring to the divide between academic research and the goal-oriented focus of biotechnology companies.
“Efficient conversion of discoveries into effective medicines will require seamless integration of not only discovery and applied science, but also the exploratory and goal-oriented cultures in academia and industry,” DuBois said.
Goals: Biomarker-driven clinical trials
Goals for the new research center include developing novel drug candidates for biomarker-driven clinical trials within 5 years. Leadership teams believe this can be achieved by incorporating attributes from academic and industrial research to identify new cancer targets, translate the scientific knowledge into novel cancer drugs, and advance the new agents into innovative, biomarker-driven clinical trials.