Global insight into rare disease and orphan drug definitions: a systematic literature review.

Objectives: This study sheds light on the available global definitions, classifications, and criteria used for rare diseases (RDs), ultrarare diseases (URDs), orphan drugs (ODs) and ultraorphan drugs (UODs) and provides insights into the rationale behind these definitions.

Design: A systematic literature review was conducted to identify existing definitions and the criteria used to define RDs, ODs and their subtypes.

Data Sources: Searches were performed in the PubMed/Medline, Embase, Scopus and Web of Science (Science and Social Sciences Citation Index) databases covering articles published from 1985 to 2021.

A non-interventional biomarker study in patients with adenocarcinoma of the lung treated with nintedanib plus docetaxel following progression on chemotherapy and/or immunotherapy: LUME-BioNIS.

Background: Anti-angiogenic agents, such as nintedanib and ramucirumab, when combined with docetaxel, are subsequent treatment options in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who have failed on first-line chemotherapy or immunochemotherapy. However, to date, there are no validated predictive biomarkers for efficacy of anti-angiogenic therapies in this setting. The aim of this study was to explore whether genetic or genomic markers, alone or combined with clinical covariates, could be used to predict overall survival (OS) in patients with NSCLC who are eligible for treatment with nintedanib plus docetaxel.

Neoadjuvant Nivolumab Plus Ipilimumab Versus Chemotherapy in Resectable Lung Cancer.

Purpose: Neoadjuvant immune checkpoint blockade with nivolumab plus ipilimumab improves overall survival (OS) in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC); however, randomized data for resectable lung cancer are limited. We report results from the exploratory concurrently randomized nivolumab plus ipilimumab and chemotherapy arms of the international phase III CheckMate 816 trial.

Methods: Adults with stage IB-IIIA (American Joint Committee on Cancer seventh edition) resectable NSCLC received three cycles of nivolumab once every 2 weeks plus one cycle of ipilimumab or three cycles of chemotherapy (on day 1 or days 1 and 8 of each 3-week cycle) followed by surgery.

Phenotypic evolution of SARS-CoV-2 spike during the COVID-19 pandemic.

SARS-CoV-2 variants are mainly defined by mutations in their spike. It is therefore critical to understand how the evolutionary trajectories of spike affect virus phenotypes. So far, it has been challenging to comprehensively compare the many spikes that emerged during the pandemic in a single experimental platform.