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Date: March 29, 2007
Contacts: Vanee Vines, Senior Media Relations Officer
Michelle Strikowsky, Media Relations Assistant
Office of News and Public Information
202-334-2138; e-mail <news@nas.edu>
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
U.S. Needs Integrated Approach to Improving Research and Development in Cancer Biomarkers
WASHINGTON -- Federal agencies and other research funders, academic scientists, and private industry should take a coordinated, comprehensive approach to research and development in cancer biomarkers, a field now hindered by piecemeal and unorganized efforts, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine.
Many scientists have long sought ways to diagnose cancers at an early, curable stage or to develop optimal therapies for individual patients. To that end, biomarkers – which are biological features, such as proteins or biochemicals, that flag the presence of disease or measure the effects of drug treatments – have been held up as promising tools in cancer care. But significant challenges, including a patchwork of standards for clinical use of cancer biomarkers and unclear regulatory authority over the field, have slowed progress, the report says.
Oncology therapies are expensive and typically benefit only a minority of patients. Tests that could show which drugs would work best for an individual patient would reduce costs and improve health outcomes, the report says. Currently, only a few cancer biomarkers have been validated to justify their use. A single federal agency should coordinate and oversee a more organized approach to the discovery of these cancer indicators, as well as the development of novel technologies.
To spur R&D in this area, pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies should join with federal agencies to create international research consortia. Collaborative efforts to generate and share data and scientific leads could leverage the resources of each partner and benefit the entire field, the report says. Past efforts, notably the Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Consortium, demonstrate how such partnerships can decrease costs for each member and yield information that companies may transform into better diagnostics.
In addition, the National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute, and other agencies should sustain support for high-quality repositories to store patients' cell and tissue samples collected in prospective studies. Such samples would be very useful for discovering and validating new biomarkers. Measures to ensure patients' privacy and rights while promoting research should govern the repositories, the report adds.
Research sponsors should focus support on projects to develop indicators of cell communication pathways that are involved in many kinds of cancer and other diseases -- so that the resulting biomarkers would have the broadest possible application, the report says. Efforts to develop biomarkers for particular drugs are riskier investments of resources because the indicators could become obsolete if the drugs failed or therapy guidelines changed.
On the whole, government agencies and other stakeholders should cooperate to create guidelines for the development, validation, and use of biomarkers, the report says. The number of false results generated by widely used biomarker-based tests for breast cancer underscores the need for uniform standards to validate tests and for greater regulatory oversight of tests once they reach the market. No federal agency now takes responsibility for ensuring the clinical validity or usefulness of biomarkers.
The study was sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, American Cancer Society, American Society of Clinical Oncology, C-Change, and UnitedHealth Group. Established in 1970 under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine provides independent, objective, evidence-based advice to policymakers, health professionals, the private sector, and the public. The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council make up the National Academies. A committee roster follows.
Copies of Cancer Biomarkers: The Promises and Challenges of Improving Detection and Treatment are available from the National Academies Press; tel. 202-334-3313 or 1-800-624-6242 or on the Internet at http://www.nap.edu. The cost of the report is $42.00 (prepaid) plus shipping charges of $4.50 for the first copy and $.95 for each additional copy. Reporters may obtain a copy from the Office of News and Public Information (contacts listed above).
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[ This news release and report are available at http://national-academies.org ]
INSTITUTE OF MEDICINE
Committee on Developing Biomarker-based Tools for Cancer Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment
Harold L. Moses, M.D. (chair)
Hortense B. Ingram Professor of Molecular Oncology;
Director
Frances Williams Preston Laboratories; and
Professor of Cancer Biology, Medicine, and Pathology
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
Nashville, Tenn.
David Carbone, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor of Medicine and Cancer Biology
Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and
Director
Experimental Therapeutics Program
Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center
Nashville, Tenn.
Leland H. Hartwell, Ph.D.
President and Director
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and
Professor of Genome Sciences
University of Washington School of Medicine
Seattle
Judith K. Hellerstein, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Economics and Faculty Associate
Maryland Population Research Center
University of Maryland
College Park
Robert S. McDonough, M.D., J.D.
Medical Director
Clinical Policy Unit
Aetna Inc.
Hartford, Conn.
David R. Parkinson, M.D.
Senior Vice President
Oncology Research and Development
Biogen Idec
San Diego
Edith A. Perez, M.D.
Professor of Medicine
Mayo Medical School
Rochester, Minn., and
Director
Cancer Clinical Study Unit
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, Fla.
Scott D. Ramsey, M.D., Ph.D.
Full Member, Translational and Outcomes Research Group
Cancer Prevention Program
Division of Public Health Science
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, and
Faculty Member
School of Medicine, School of Pharmacy, and Institute of Public Health Genetics
University of Washington
Seattle
Charles Sawyers, M.D.
Chairman
Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
New York City
Howard Schulman, Ph.D.
Vice President of R&D
Biomarker Discovery Sciences
Pharmaceutical Product Development Inc.
Menlo Park, Calif.
Margaret R. Spitz, M.D., M.P.H.
Chair of Epidemiology
M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
University of Texas
Houston
INSTITUTE STAFF
Sharyl J. Nass, Ph.D.
Study Director
