• The number of US cancer survivors rose to 13.7 million as of January 2012, noted the Cancer Progress Report 2013 (www.cancerprogressreport.org), released in September by the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). Continued progress “will only be possible if we make funding for cancer research and biomedical science a national priority,” emphasized Charles Sawyers, MD, AACR president and chair of the human oncology and pathogenesis program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, NY.

  • The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted accelerated approval to Genentech's Perjeta (pertuzumab) for neoadjuvant treatment of early-stage breast cancer, the first drug to receive such approval. “We are seeing a significant shift in the treatment paradigm for early-stage breast cancer,” said Richard Pazdur, MD, director of the agency's Office of Oncology Drug Products.

  • Merck is cutting about one fifth of its global workforce, with a new round of about 8,500 layoffs in addition to an earlier reduction of about 7,500 employees.

  • In a phase III trial of 602 women with advanced HER2-positive breast cancer whose cancer recurred or progressed despite previous treatments, those given Genentech's Kadcyla (T-DM1, ado-trastuzumab emtansine) achieved median progression-free survival (PFS) of 6.2 months, compared with PFS of 3.3 months for those who received their physician's choice of treatment. Patients given Kadcyla also experienced fewer serious adverse side effects than those in the control group. The study was reported at the European Cancer Congress (ECC) 2013, held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, from September 27 through October 1.

  • During the next 50 years, the dominant contributions to the global cancer burden will be from India, China, and Nigeria, predicted the State of Oncology 2013 report (www.i-pri.org/oncology 2013), presented at the ECC.

  • Nike cofounder Phil Knight pledged to give Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) a $500 million award for cancer research, but with an important footnote: For the award to be delivered, OHSU must raise an equivalent sum within 2 years.

For more news on cancer research, visit Cancer Discovery online at http://CDnews.aacrjournals.org.

©2013 American Association for Cancer Research.
2013