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Cancer Drug Proves To Be Effective Against Multiple Tumors (nytimes.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the cellular-service dept.

An anonymous reader writes: 86 cancer patients were enrolled in a trial of a drug that helps the immune system attack tumors. Though they had different kinds of tumor -- pancreas, prostate, uterus or bone -- they all shared a genetic mutation that disrupts their cells' ability to fix damaged DNA, found in 4% of all cancer patients. But tumors vanished and didn't return for 18 patients in the study, reports the New York Times, while 66 more patients "had their tumors shrink substantially and stabilize, instead of continuing to grow." The drug trial results were "so striking that the Food and Drug Administration already has approved the drug, pembrolizumab, brand name Keytruda, for patients whose cancers arise from the same genetic abnormality. It is the first time a drug has been approved for use against tumors that share a certain genetic profile, whatever their location in the body."
The researchers say that just in the U.S. there are 60,000 new patients every year who could benefit from the new drug.

57 of 81 comments (clear)

  1. This is great. by filesiteguy · · Score: 1

    If approved by the FDA, it will be ready to use in 25 years for the 99% who can't afford it now.

    --
    The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
    1. Re:This is great. by interkin3tic · · Score: 2

      You mean six months. Assuming the drug actually works that is. The delays come in proving it works.

    2. Re:This is great. by Njorthbiatr · · Score: 2

      He means Merck is price gouging it. So people will be riddled with medical debt (and governments), but don't worry, they no longer have cancer while they eat their ramen soup cups under a bridge.

    3. Re:This is great. by nanoflower · · Score: 1

      No idea if it works but it seems like it should already be approved given that I've been seeing ads for this drug for a while now. It doesn't seem like the company would be paying for ads if they couldn't recoup that money.

    4. Re:This is great. by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

      No idea if it works

      It works. For more information, try reading the article ... or the summary ... or the headline.

      .. but it seems like it should already be approved

      It has already been approved. For more information, try reading the article ... or the summary.

    5. Re:This is great. by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

      My country is single payer, so we will help you pay for it at a price that is acceptable to both parties.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    6. Re:This is great. by markdavis · · Score: 3, Insightful

      >"My country is single payer, so we will help you pay for it at a price that is acceptable to both parties."

      You just probably won't have any company ever actually invent any drugs in your country because there is no money to pay for the development.

    7. Re:This is great. by filesiteguy · · Score: 1

      My point being that in 25 years (I may be off) there will be an affordable generic version of the drug.

      --
      The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
    8. Re:This is great. by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

      Merick and Co can set the price to whatever they want to when they sell it to a single buyer country. If they don't set it high enough to continue development then that's not exactly the buyer's problem. Besides, there are plenty of people who do this to save lives, not get rich.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    9. Re:This is great. by Njorthbiatr · · Score: 1

      You think that's where most of the money is going? Nah.

    10. Re: This is great. by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

      Yes I'm sure everyone working there is very poor.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    11. Re:This is great. by mjwx · · Score: 1

      >"My country is single payer, so we will help you pay for it at a price that is acceptable to both parties."

      You just probably won't have any company ever actually invent any drugs in your country because there is no money to pay for the development.

      Guess again.

      From the fine article:

      The study started in 2013 and is funded by philanthropies; the drugmakerâ(TM)s [Merek] only role was to supply the drug.

      So it seems your User pays for everything, then we charge the government to pay for it again system is an utter failure. Merek would never have bothered with this drug if the tests were not conducted by someone else.

      The overwhelming majority of life saving treatments are developed using public money. There's no money in curing cancer, especially not when hardness pills and placebo vitamins are so profitable (yes, thats where the majority of private R&D goes, so-called "lifestyle" drugs).

      The UK's NHS is not perfect, but here you get the treatment you need, not billed for tests and drugs you dont need.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
    12. Re:This is great. by lars_stefan_axelsson · · Score: 1

      You just probably won't have any company ever actually invent any drugs in your country because there is no money to pay for the development.

      Ever heard of Beta blockers, or Losec? Just to name a few. Invented and developed by Swedish industry. A country that is very much single payer, with centralised purchasing of all drugs at set prices.

      And yet, there's plenty of money to be made...

      --
      Stefan Axelsson
    13. Re:This is great. by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      Drug companies routinely get extorted when they try to set prices outside the US. The country says to the drug company "Sell it for 50 cents a dose or we'll develop a generic and you won't get a cent." The drug companies almost always give in.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    14. Re:This is great. by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

      Again, it's up to them and the American government to come up with some trade agreement that prohibits this if it is a problem. You can't get benefits from the upside of capitalism without facing the downside.. That your product is worth what people are willing to pay for it.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
  2. I can only say by Artem+S.+Tashkinov · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Such inventions which consist of a crazy amount of hard work, many sleepless nights, a lot of talent and ingenuity are the reason why I absolutely love science.

    1. Re:I can only say by haruchai · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      And the people most likely to profit financially from it don't know the 1st thing about science but everything about profiting from your loss.

      --
      Pain is merely failure leaving the body
    2. Re:I can only say by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The people that will profit are the people that paid for the research and clinical trials that made the drug possible.

    3. Re:I can only say by bugs2squash · · Score: 2

      And the patients

      --
      Nullius in verba
    4. Re:I can only say by Kjella · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And the people most likely to profit financially from it don't know the 1st thing about science but everything about profiting from your loss.

      True, but they do know a bit about risk management and they do have incentive to create something useful and then use that to profit big. No results means no income, it's a gamble. You could of course hire some public scientists, but it's very hard to say who is doing anything productive. What I've come to realize more and more about the public sector is that without competition you pass everything straight through to the end user. If McDonald's is losing money and is threatened by Burger King, they'll being doing some real soul searching about their concept, products, processes and all that. Hard decisions will be made on every level and excess fat trimmed.

      In the public sector, shit flows straight downhill. If they cut the funding to the planning office, building permits take longer. If they get more money, they can hire more people and do the same job faster. But at no point is there any real pressure to change the way building permits are issued. There's no competing office covering the same area that'll do it faster or simpler. You can't have competition on everything, it's hard to see how you could have competing police, military, courts, IRS, DMV, CPS and many other things. But very few of those are known for their cost efficiency and user friendliness. You can kill medical patents, fund a public behemoth of a research institute instead. But I'm not sure it'd be better.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    5. Re:I can only say by kanweg · · Score: 1

      "And the people most likely to profit financially from it don't know the 1st thing about science but everything about profiting from your loss."

      Priests. Praise the Lord!

      Bert

    6. Re:I can only say by umafuckit · · Score: 1

      True, but they do know a bit about risk management and they do have incentive to create something useful and then use that to profit big. No results means no income, it's a gamble. You could of course hire some public scientists, but it's very hard to say who is doing anything productive. What I've come to realize more and more about the public sector is that without competition you pass everything straight through to the end user.

      What you call "public science" is a pretty competitive career. The currency is just research papers and influence rather than pure financial profit.

      --
      soylentnews.org
    7. Re:I can only say by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Let's say this "cancer cure" is for real - in the sense of curing 50,000 cancers per year. And let's say that the scientists who discovered it were sufficiently clever and hard working that, had they not existed, it would have been another five years before another team of scientists made the same discovery. So, for the sake of argument, let's assume these scientists saved 250,000 lives.

      Now, being able to front up to a cocktail party, gaze into the distance drink in hand with a look that says you've been places (intellectually) that no one else has ever been and say, "Yeah, I did actually make a scientific discovery that saved 250,000 people from dying of cancer." Well, for some people that counts for quite a bit. For some people, as long as they were somehow earning enough to live simply but comfortably, if you gave them a choice between having a million dollars for themselves or saving 250,000 lives, well they'd choose to save the lives.

      The thing is, for most people, life is deeply humiliating. Even if you can manage to eat some good food and have a family that treats you reasonably well, you and everyone you care about is going to die. And in almost all cases that death will be slow, painful, and, if you live in the USA, very expensive. Basically, death is ultimate humiliation - and it's inevitable.

      So, you're lying there dying slowly and painfully. Most of the people you cared about and who cared about you have already died slowly and painfully. Maybe you've got a million dollars in the bank - but so what? You're still dying. But if you saved 250,000 lives. Well, then at least you could look life in square in the eyes with a small shed of dignity "Because of me 250,000 did not die before their time. Even in the face of death I feel that my life had meaning and purpose."

      The thing is, though, you can't just let your family starve while you try over and over again to find a cure for cancer. Scientist don't need rewards for their success. The success itself is more than enough reward. What scientists need is security to fail - and still feed their families. There are far more people trained up with fancy PhDs wanting to do scientific research than available jobs.

      If you want more cures for cancer, the formula is simple: create jobs for scientists where they can still feed their families when they fail. For example, half the year they teach science and the other half they do whatever they can to find a cure for cancer. But, when they fail to find a cure for cancer, you still pay them a comfortable salary for the teaching that they did.

      It's not hard. But it's hard unless you decide to do it.

    8. Re:I can only say by bugs2squash · · Score: 1

      Nice post

      --
      Nullius in verba
    9. Re:I can only say by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      Such inventions which consist of a crazy amount of hard work, many sleepless nights, a lot of talent and ingenuity are the reason why I absolutely love science.

      They say the defining moment of science is NOT "Eureka!" but "That's funny..."

    10. Re:I can only say by guises · · Score: 1

      If you read the article you would see that no: Merck, who profits from this $156k/year drug, only supplied it. The study was funded by philanthropies (sic).

    11. Re:I can only say by Maritz · · Score: 1

      In the libertarian, "fuck-you-I-got-mine" culture of slashdot I'm pleased to see this post. Expect it to mainly fall on deaf ears, but so what. ;)

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    12. Re:I can only say by lars_stefan_axelsson · · Score: 1

      You could of course hire some public scientists, but it's very hard to say who is doing anything productive.

      No, not even remotely true. I'm working much harder and under much higher scrutiny as a publicly funded researcher than I ever did in industry (where I spent ten years of my life).

      This is especially true in medicin. Most new drugs are from publicly funded research in the US. While private industry spend a lot of money it's later in the game, commercialising public results.

      The public can afford to take cheap (relatively speaking) risks that nothing will result. Corporations won't. They'll play it safe. (Just witness Hollywood...)

      --
      Stefan Axelsson
    13. Re:I can only say by micahraleigh · · Score: 1

      You seem to suggest stopping profits is more important than saving lives.

      Given the drooling over euthanasia and eugenics on slashdot I am inclined to believe your goal is really just wanting as many people to die as possible and marxism is just a stretch of a way to get there.

    14. Re:I can only say by micahraleigh · · Score: 1

      According to the Ken Burns cancer documentary on Netflix the main reason why immunotherapy was so slow to get momentum was there was very little intellectual or academic effort involved. Science isn't really the hero here. Science is just introducing the immune system (which was not by any account created by science) to the cancer.

      The elites decided it didn't help their careers much so they were more than happy to throw the cancer funding into the furnace, annually. Business (*yes* BIG PHARMA) is saving the lives here.

    15. Re:I can only say by haruchai · · Score: 1

      You seem to suggest stopping profits is more important than saving lives.
      Given the drooling over euthanasia and eugenics on slashdot I am inclined to believe your goal is really just wanting as many people to die as possible and marxism is just a stretch of a way to get there.

      I'm suggesting nothing of the sort but have no control over your inclinations.
      US Pharma biz however seems to have had no trouble bleeding sick people dry.
      A former colleague of mine who has several serious health challenges throughout her life left behind a mountain of debt, well into the millions of dollars.
      She may be something of an outlier but still far from unique.

      --
      Pain is merely failure leaving the body
    16. Re:I can only say by micahraleigh · · Score: 1

      So your alternative proposal is the government just disallows this cutting edge tech and people just die?

      Maybe a government that forces people to make this decision is flawed?

      Or run by murderers?

    17. Re:I can only say by haruchai · · Score: 1

      If that's the conclusion, you reached by reading my posts, I don't think we share a common language family

      --
      Pain is merely failure leaving the body
    18. Re:I can only say by micahraleigh · · Score: 1

      I don't recall seeing anywhere in your posts what your alternative proposal is.

      You claim big pharma sucks people dry. How would you address that?

  3. Re: Mercked by toonces33 · · Score: 1

    You can go online and find that 4 vials goes for abound 8-9K$, but I have no idea how many vials you would need for a full round of treatment. At the end of the day what matters more is if insurance companies will pay for it or not. But all other forms of cancer treatment aren't cheap either.

  4. Re: Mercked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    My mom went through 4 rounds of chemo for her breast cancer, which was a kind that could turn malignant but was caught early (it only spread to one set of lymph nodes). Whatever this new drug costs, it must be cheaper than the hospital cost of a slow lingering death.

  5. Re: Mercked by MightyYar · · Score: 2

    So let the rich pay for the development costs and then in 15-20 years everyone will get the treatment at roughly production cost. In the meantime, companies will still offer their drug to economically disadvantaged people - both for public relations and because they didn't fall asleep during the price discrimination part of Econ class. That's pretty much how the system is meant to work - your idea of how it should work is almost certainly worse.

    --
    W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
  6. Re:study paper without paywall? by Razed+By+TV · · Score: 2

    Let me sci hub that for you
    https://sci-hub.cc/10.1126/sci...

  7. Ugh...more commercials by RogueWarrior65 · · Score: 2

    The explosion of drug TV commercials is getting annoying. Ok, Keytruda might be able to justify one now but how many people could possibly have "non-24" to the point of justifying the expense of a commercial? And what's the point of it anyway? You can't buy these things unless your doctor prescribes it and I guarantee you that he/she knows more about them that you do. Do not mistake your google search for their medical degree.

  8. Re: Mercked by mspohr · · Score: 3, Informative

    That's the drug company pricing model. "Your money or your life"

    --
    I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
  9. Re: Mercked by mspohr · · Score: 1

    I bet you're one of those people go got a "free" iPhone (with a two year contract to get raped by the phone company).
    Who do you think pays for insurance?
    Insurance may pay outrageous prices for drugs but they turn around and charge you for it... every single month.

    --
    I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
  10. Many tumors, but all same type. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1

    The summary is clear this drug works on tumors caused by one genetic mutation, affecting about 4% of the cancer patients. The tumors appear in many organs but they were all caused by the same genetic mutation.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  11. Cancer can not be cured. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 2
    Cancer is not a single disease. It is a collective name for all kinds of failures in the body when an age old covenant among the cells break down.

    Evolution can filter out diseases that affect the ability to reproduce very well very efficiently. If a disease takes so long to bake, it does not affect the ability to reproduce, those diseases will never be filtered out. All the cells in the body have the potential to become a cancer. All the cells in the body will become cancerous after so many generations of subdivision.

    This drug that helps the 4% of the people with a specific mutation will not help them against the 96% of the remaining kinds of cancer. Even after this treatment, they can get a different cancer. If the general population has probability p of getting cancer, these patients will have 0.96 * p probability of getting some other type of cancer.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:Cancer can not be cured. by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      You are a ray of sunshine.

    2. Re:Cancer can not be cured. by gringer · · Score: 1

      All the cells in the body will become cancerous after so many generations of subdivision.

      Naked Mole Rats suggest otherwise:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      --
      Ask me about repetitive DNA
    3. Re:Cancer can not be cured. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1
      Thanks for the citation. I remember some disgusting facts about mole rats, they eat each other's crap. But this is new.

      It looks like the naked mole rats have lower levels of metabolism, they undergo cell division at a lower rate. We have seen in humans, people who starve and live under 1000 cal/day live much longer. So one mechanism is known but not very appealing to humans.

      The other mechanisms seem to be highly error free cell division, and much lower rates of mutations per generation. R&D here might help the ALL people. If we reduce the mutation rate, effects of ageing will slow down and it would actually be the fountain of youth.

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    4. Re:Cancer can not be cured. by Maritz · · Score: 1

      So?

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    5. Re:Cancer can not be cured. by Maritz · · Score: 1

      If we reduce the mutation rate, effects of ageing will slow down and it would actually be the fountain of youth.

      No. DNA degradation is not the main driver of old age. If it was the main problem we'd be living for a couple of centuries. There are numerous other issues with aging that are more pressing.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  12. Re: Mercked by Doke · · Score: 1

    4 50mg vials is around $9k USD. Standard dosage for adults is 200mg every 3 weeks. That's about $156k per year. http://www.merck.com/product/u... https://www.goodrx.com/keytrud... In contrast, my Remicade for arthritis is about $40k / year, but my insurance brings it down to about a $300 / year co-pay. So you don't have to be rich. You just need a job with decent benefits.

  13. Re: Mercked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Looks like you learned a lot from him.

  14. Re: Mercked by bestweasel · · Score: 1

    This article says Remicade costs the UK NHS on average £1500 ($1900) per patient per year.

    "About 100,000 NHS patients are treated with it at a cost of approximately £150m per year."

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/bus...

  15. Re: Mercked by MightyYar · · Score: 1

    Why would a poor person buy an EpiPen instead of the cheap generic versions that do the same thing? Even Mylan makes a generic version that is exactly the same as the regular EpiPen without the branding.

    --
    W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
  16. Re: Mercked by dgatwood · · Score: 1

    My mom went through 4 rounds of chemo for her breast cancer, which was a kind that could turn malignant ...

    I think the word you were looking for is "metastatic". All cancer is, by definition, malignant. That's the difference between cancer and a benign tumor or nodule.

    --

    Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  17. Re: Mercked by buck-yar · · Score: 1

    Bifidobacterium is your free or almost free alternative.

    "Next, they compared the effects of bacterial transfer against a checkpoint inhibitor, anti-PD-L1 antibodies. They found that introducing the bacteria was just as effective as treating them with anti-PD-L1 antibodies, resulting in significantly slower tumor growth.

    So they began searching for the specific bacteria that made the difference. They identified microbes from the digestive tracts of JAX and TAC mice by large-scale sequencing. Although there were significant differences in 254 taxonomic families of bacteria from the two sets of mice, three groups were prominent.

    When they tested the effects of each group on the mice’s immune systems, one group, the Bifidobacterium, stood out. Within two weeks of oral administration, TAC mice that received just Bifidobacterium species had a marked increase in the anti-tumor T cell responses.

    Mice treated just with Bifidobacterium, rather than the full fecal transfer, displayed tumor control comparable to those who received the full mixture. The effect was long-lasting. TAC mice exposed to tumors as late as six weeks after the Bifidobacterium transfer were still able to mount a robust immune response."

    https://news.uchicago.edu/arti...

  18. Re: Mercked by someone1234 · · Score: 1

    This doesn't sound that terrible for poor people on the long run, though. Rich people will stay alive and inbreed with this genetic defect, while poor people will get selectively removed from the gene pool.

    --
    Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
  19. Re: Mercked by Maritz · · Score: 1

    You still managed to come across as a complete cunt, so I daresay he managed to pass something on.

    --
    I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  20. Re:this is great, but.. by Maritz · · Score: 1

    Barely coherent. Are you supposed to be addressing whoever posted the article? Medical breakthroughs count as 'news for nerds' ergo; fuck off.

    --
    I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.