U.S. study will test whether drug combinations can wipe out tumors
The U.S. government is launching a wide-ranging effort to study whether combining two drugs matched to molecular weak spots in a patient’s tumor will work better to wipe out the cancer than a single such drug. Although cancer drug combinations are nothing new, the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI’s) ComboMATCH study formally announced today is demanding unusually rigorous evidence—in the form of data showing the drug pairs shrink tumors in mice—before letting them move into clinical testing. The effort will also take advantage of NCI’s sprawling clinical networks to find patients whose tumors have rare mutations that could be targeted. This framework “will allow us to explore many exciting novel drug combinations,” says oncologist Roisin O’Cearbhaill of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center,...