New breast study to tailor drugs to patients

Researchers launched a clinical study Wednesday to test five experimental breast cancer drugs in a collaboration between the U.S. government and three major drug companies, Reuters reported Friday.
The study called I-SPY2, will aim to use DNA from the tumors of individual patients to match the most effective drug to each patient and to find the most promising treatments.
Five new experimental anti-cancer drugs will be tested as part of the study, which is expected to cost 26 million dollars over five years.The trial will match patients to one of five experimental:ABT-888, AMG 655, AMG 386, CP-751,871 and HKI-272.
\”I-SPY 2 promises to leverage convergence of progress on a number of research fronts to speed the evaluation of promising new breast cancer drugs using molecular cancer biomarkers to identify those agents that are effective in specific subpopulations of breast cancer patients,\” said Anna Barker, deputy director of the National Cancer Institute
\”I-SPY 2 will provide a path to personalized medicine,\” said Dr. Laura Esserman, a breast cancer surgeon at the University of California San Francisco who will help lead the clinical trials. \”We intend that every drug will graduate with a companion marker.\”
If the study is a success, it is hoped it might cut both the costs and time to develop new drugs for the public. More importantly, the most promising treatments can then be matched with patients.