Academics + Pharma = Big Bucks; New CAR-T Warnings; Patients Seek Cancer Tests

Amid controversy and discussions about the high cost of cancer drugs, some academic medical centers profit handsomely from pharma-paid royalties on drugs developed with public funding. (Los Angeles Magazine)

The FDA has mandated updates to boxed warnings and labeling for CAR T-cell therapies related to a serious risk of T-cell malignancies associated with all BCMA- and CD-19 targeted therapies, saying that patients “should be monitored life-long for secondary malignancies.”

The Air Force is looking into findings from a recent study that showed higher rates of a rare type of brain and spinal cord cancer among children of personnel at Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico. (Military.com)

Nuclear medicine — injectable radioactive drugs — is the “new target” in pharma’s race to develop, and acquire, cancer therapies. (Bloomberg)

A 40-year smoker heeded the call to get screened for lung cancer, and it saved her life. (NPR)

Roche announced that adding glofitamab (Columvi) to chemotherapy significantly improved overall survival (OS) in relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma versus chemotherapy alone.

AstraZeneca announced that adding durvalumab (Imfinzi) to chemotherapy improved 3-year OS in advanced biliary cancer as compared with chemotherapy alone.

Some patients aren’t waiting for approval of blood tests to detect cancer. (Washington Post)

Newly discovered receptors that target prostate cancer could provide impetus for new approaches to treatment. (UCLA)

By studying ovarian cancer specimens, researchers found cellular patterns that may help identify patients who are likely to relapse early after treatment. (Cedars-Sinai)

Extracting dormant immune cells from a tumor and then activating and infusing them back into the tumor offers a promising approach to treat aggressive uveal melanoma. (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Nature Communications)

With help from artificial intelligence, researchers found they could double the detection rate for esophageal cancer. (Science Translational Medicine)