Developing an oncology portfolio of anticancer drugs: the experience of one pharmaceutical company.

For a company or institute that wishes to develop new anti-cancer agents, it is necessary to establish a portfolio of agents to reduce the risk of failure. Success rates for developing new agents are low and therefore different biological effect areas should be explored to ensure that at least one agent targeting cancer or a specific histological sub-type of cancer is effectively developed. This paper describes how one pharmaceutical company has developed a range of different agents with the ultimate aim of developing as many of these as is technically feasible into useful new medicines for the treatment of cancer.

[Cancer prevention].

The 12 th Oncology Forum discussed the progress and future strategy of cancer prevention in Japan. The National Cancer Center has established a research center for screening focusing on the most common six cancer, stomach, lung, liver, colon, breast and uterus cancer. The program so far had a cumulative detection rate of 3.

The difficulties industry is facing with investigators.

The number of new agents being developed for the treatment of cancer has, over the past 10 years, increased dramatically which has resulted in increased interactions between the pharmaceutical industry that discover and develop most new agents and investigators in academic institutions, hospitals and office practices. This close interaction has inevitably led to a number of issues being identified on both sides and this paper will attempt to identify some of these and propose solutions.

[Anti angiogenesis].

Based on presentations on the basic concepts and scientific rationale of anti-angiogenic approaches to cancer therapy and the possible applications in the area of prostate cancer, gastrointestinal cancer, lung cancer and breast cancer it is easy to conclude that development of anti-angiogenic approaches into clinical therapies is extremely challenging. It is now well established that cancer growth is increased by angiogenic factors and that inhibition of angiogenesis decreases growth and metastatic potential. Anti-angiogenic effect can be obtained through interference with multiple targets.

Gefitinib ('Iressa', ZD1839) and new epidermal growth factor receptor inhibitors.

The epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is a promising target for cancer therapy and a number of EGFR-targeted agents have been developed. Those most advanced in development are the EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors gefitinib ('Iressa', ZD1839) and erlotinib ('Tarceva', OSI-774), and the monoclonal antibody cetuximab ('Erbitux', IMC-C225). This review provides a clinical overview of these agents, highlighting their antitumour activities in different tumour types.