Journal of the National Cancer Institute Advance Access originally published online on October 30, 2007
JNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute 2007 99(21):1570-1573; doi:10.1093/jnci/djm219
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© Oxford University Press 2007.
NEWS |
Business Barriers Slowing the Pace of Cancer Immunotherapy Research and Development
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
No cancer vaccines and only a handful of antitumor immunotherapies have gained regulatory approval, despite several decades of effort. Experts think that increased knowledge about the immune system and better agents are starting to change this.
However, regulatory and intellectual property issues currently hinder development of such therapies, they say, and will continue to cause problems unless researchers have better access to agents that are still under investigation. Two recent government-sponsored meetings highlighted these concerns, and some scientific leaders are even calling for the U.S. Congress to step in.
Testing agents together in combinations, as immune-system therapies often require, is a particular problem. Companies fear that their drug applications will be slowed down if they let outside researchers use their investigational drugs in any trial that might link the agent with side effects. But that approach often leaves agents to languish for years—agents that researchers say could be successfully attacking
Raising the Issues
Identifying Key Agents
Adjuvants
Examples May Illuminate the Mounting Cancer Vaccine Development Problem