New Report on Melanoma Research: 3 Key Findings

Posted on December 13th, 2019 by Tom Williams in Pharma R&D

The current state of melanoma research: insight & analytics, a new report released by Elsevier’s Life Sciences Professional Services, examines the landscape of melanoma R&D and reveals some very interesting findings.

Three important findings in the report include:

• In 2018, two out of three of the most cited research papers
  that mentioned melanoma in either the title, abstract or keywords explored the
  influence of the microbiome in response to melanoma patients.

The influence of the microbiome in the progression and treatment of cancer and melanoma has been one of the gaps in melanoma research, so this is an exciting emerging trend.

• Keytruda and YERVOY, two major drugs that treat melanoma, have been proven safe, with no increased likelihood of death reported as an adverse event compared to all other drugs. But results do show a higher likelihood of having reports of inflammatory, thyroid and liver adverse events.

Analyzing the results around adverse events reported for melanoma therapeutics shows there is some overlap between adverse events shown in pre-clinical primate studies and adverse events observed after approval. The Keytruda and YERVOY blockbuster drugs have been shown to be safe and there is no increased likelihood of death occurring specifically associated from taking the drugs.

• Keytruda should be used in combination with other immune-activating drugs for specific patients with non-PDCD1-suppressed immune responses.

Another gap in melanoma research and treatment is the greater understanding and awareness of the various genetic variants associated with melanoma. There are a great deal of patients with various melanoma genetic mutations that would benefit greatly from targeted therapeutics, and some drugs may be better used in a combination that targets their specific type of melanoma.

Targeted therapy is becoming more widely available and it opens up a whole new possibility to significantly increase the survival rate of people suffering from melanoma. Positively identifying the specific protein targets involved and the impact of gene variants involved in the melanoma pathway are a way to benefit patients and treatment options.

In conclusion, a positive outcome in the future will be a greater understanding of the influence of the microbiome and how influencing the microbiome to positively impact the treatment of melanoma patients. The increased number of therapeutics and those particularly targeting specific melanoma mutations is of great significance and the therapeutics in pre-clinical and clinical phases are promising to help reduce the burden of this disease.

To learn more about our findings, read the full report here.

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.

R&D Solutions for Pharma & Life Sciences

We’re happy to discuss your needs and show you how Elsevier’s Solution can help.

Contact Sales