Researchers from MSK and the Oregon Health and Science University sought to find out the approximate cost to bring a cancer drug to market. Their study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine (09/11/17), sought to quantify a standard amount by focusing on new cancer drugs and analyzing the company filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission to determine research and development costs. Although the new study was small, its estimates found the median cost was below previous estimates while profits were in the tens of billions. Dr. Sham Mailankody from MSK commented in an NPR article about their findings.

MSK’s David Hyman and Peter Bach were interviewed by The New York Times about two revolutionary treatment strategies, immunotherapy and personalised medicine, and a problem that few would have predicted several years ago. There are not enough patients available to conduct the trials, the New York Times reports, something the newspaper describes as possibly being “unprecedented” in medical research. There are currently about 1,000 immunotherapy drug trials, and that number’s expected to grow. Peter Bach told the Times that “we are squandering our most precious resource—patients.”

11-year-old Jonathan Varghese is on his way to being just a normal healthy kid thanks to his “heroes” at MSK. After a routine tonsillectomy in August 2015, his doctors, concerned that there was something more going on, sent his tissues for screening. It was then that they learned he had Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL). With a recommendation from an oncologist friend in Boston, Jonathan began a two-year intensive chemotherapy protocol developed at MSK under the supervision of Dr. Peter Steinherz. With this therapy, there was a 90% success rate for patients treated at the hospital. Jonathan only has a few months left of his protocol. “His prognosis is excellent,” Steinherz said. “The first year is the riskiest. Over the next two years, he has about a 10% risk of something coming back.”