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Immuno-Oncology Working Group Meeting

Immuno-Oncology Working Group Meeting

Summary:

Immuno-oncology (I-O) has been fueled by numerous clinical trial successes in recent years and has already transformed traditional approaches to cancer treatment. As our understanding advances and I-O therapies are implemented into routine treatment of cancer, many challenges and complexities remain to be addressed. Broadly, outstanding challenges fall into two categories: scientific, related to furthering our understanding of the mechanisms that drive immunotherapy, and systemic, related to ensuring these therapies are appropriately used as single agents or in combination in the clinical setting. At a time when broad adoption of I-O is still taking hold, an opportunity exists to learn from early experiences with I-O in melanoma and lung cancer, and identify and address high priority policy-related issues defined by the emerging science.

Friends of Cancer Research, Pfizer, and EMD Serono, working together with scientific, clinical, patient, policy and industry leaders, aimed to develop an I-O strategic policy plan to accelerate progress across multiple oncology disease states. While many of the challenges, outlined below, will be addressed as our understanding of the mechanisms of action behind immune-oncology develop, there is a role for the multi-stakeholder community to facilitate development of and appropriate access to those scientific discoveries by leveraging and mobilizing our collective knowledge to support innovation in immune-oncology. The identified policy issues may include regulatory, legislative, reimbursement and education/training issues. The output of this effort is informed by recent advancements in research, intended to be outcome-driven, and designed to leverage and complement other ongoing activities in the field.

Access the post-meeting forum summary HERE. It outlines strategic approaches, challenges, opportunities and recommended next steps for this effort.

IMMUNO-ONCOLOGY POLICY WORKING GROUP MEETING

December 16th, 2015

10:00am – 4:00pm

West Health Center

1909 K St NW #730

Washington, DC 20006