Precision medicine is progressing in France. Since 2000, 43 anti-cancer molecules have been put on the market. They have yet to reach more patients.
In France, 385,000 new cancers were declared in 2015. While they are more numerous, they are also better treated. At the end of the year, one in two patients was considered cured. Part of the credit goes to targeted therapies. This precision medicine helps block tumors based on their abnormalities. The National Cancer Institute (INCa) welcomes the success of these recent treatments. Indeed, they only appeared in the 2000s. Today, 43 molecules are authorized in France.
Targeted therapy is a still young area of cancerology. She takes a different approach from chemotherapy: inhibiting the mechanisms of oncogenesis, that is, those that promote tumor growth. Since 2012, a real acceleration has been observed in this sector. It should continue: at the end of 2015, 18 new locations were defined. A long road has been traveled since the first marketing authorization, granted to trastuzumab. “A paradigm shift in cancer management has been observed in oncology, moving from organ oncology to stratified oncology,” welcomes INCa.
Broaden the target
But targeted therapies are still reserved for the too few chosen ones. The molecules can claim to reach around 2,000 patients. The rest of the time, they are intended for smaller populations. These drugs are mainly indicated in non-small cell lung cancer, hematologic malignancies and breast cancer. INCa underlines a major avenue for improvement: widening the target. Another area to be developed is pediatric oncology. Currently, children are little affected by targeted therapies. An evolution of European regulations is necessary.
There remains the question of the significant cost of this innovation. Like immunotherapies, targeted therapies break the spending limits. On the list in addition to hospitals, which concerns off-budget drugs, they represent half of the sums allocated to anticancer drugs. The same goes for pharmacies. The place of these therapies must therefore be defined more clearly.
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