Biological insight in new drug combinations

Dr Garralda talks with ecancer at the ESMO 2017 Congress about the need for a better framework and system in order to increase the effectiveness of developing new drug combinations.

Noting the national and international barriers to designing and implementing trials of novel drug combinations, she describes how better genomic understanding of tumour origins and vulnerabilities may expose novel pathways to be targeted, and indicate cancer subgroups with the best chance of response.

Given the number of patients receiving immunotherapies who do not respond, and the progress in understanding these populations based on genetic sequencing, Dr Garralda describes new combinations as a highly worthwhile means of cornering cancer, regardless of hetereogeneity or development of resistance.

ecancer's filming has been kindly supported by Amgen through the ECMS Foundation. ecancer is editorially independent and there is no influence over content.

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