世界最大癌症会议本周闭幕，带你了解全球癌症研究领域三大动态

前天是美国临床肿瘤学会（ASCO）年会的最后一天。该组织的年会也是全世界规模最大的癌症会议，吸引了超过3万名肿瘤学研究人员、生物制药公司高管、投资人和公共健康专家参加。

美国肿瘤学会为大大小小的生物科技和制药公司提供了一个展示各种现有和实验性药物的最新临床试验数据的机会。年会期间，还举办了几个专门用来讨论药品定价及医学标准等政策问题的论坛。去年，美国前副总统拜登在年会上做主题演讲时，还宣布联邦政府将制定一项基因数据共享计划，以促进癌症研究。

那么，今年的ASCO年会又给我们带来了癌症研究方面的哪些新进展呢？

小公司凭借出色成绩成为焦点

在2017年的ASCO年会上，有好几项癌症研究方面的最新进展都来自一些相对较小的公司，比如斯坦福市的Loxo Oncology公司，中国的南京传奇生物技术公司等等。在中期试验中，Loxo Oncology公司主打的试验性抗癌药物larotrectinib对体内带有一种特定基因标记的病人中的76%都产生了较好的疗效，而该公司的股票也飙升了近50%。也就是说，只要病人身上带有这种基因标记，这种药物就会对病人患上的多种癌症有效。而南京传奇生物技术公司则为我们展示了一种抗癌新疗法的早期数据（这种疗法又叫CAR-T免疫疗法，通过对病人免疫细胞的重新编程来对抗血癌）。从数据来看，这家公司完全有与诺华制药、凯特制药公司（Kite Pharma）、朱诺治疗公司（Juno Therapeutics）等同领域的制药或生物科技巨头一较高下的能力。南京传奇生物技术公司的产品瞄准了另一种生物标记，现在它正在针对多发性骨骼瘤进行测试——这也是一种较为罕见的血癌。

辉瑞140亿美元收购Medivation被批报价报高

去年夏天，辉瑞制药以140亿美元收购了癌症生物科技公司Medivation，当时所有人都觉得辉瑞是这笔生意的大赢家。当时辉瑞的报价比Medivation公司的市值还要高出20%，但是很多药企都看上了该公司研发的前列腺癌药物恩杂鲁胺（Xtandi），纷纷向该公司伸出橄榄枝，其中最有名的一家潜在买主就是法国的赛诺菲。不过辉瑞在本次ASCO年会上展示的数据让有些分析师表示，辉瑞当初给出的报价可能过高了。因为强生公司自家研发的抗癌药物阿比特龙（Zytiga）的临床效果非常喜人，很多投资者和医生都认为，阿比特龙将成为前列腺患者的首选药物。在临床试验中，阿比特龙使患者的死亡风险降低了38%，这意味着用不了多久，医生们就会在病人患病的早期阶段给他们开出这种药物。虽然恩杂鲁胺的出现抢占了阿比特龙的部分市场份额，但这种趋势可能很快就会自行扭转回来。

联合用药将成未来趋势，且有可能加速制药企业的合并

当前肿瘤研究的最大趋势之一，就是研究将新一代的癌症免疫疗法——免疫检查点抑制剂（如默克公司的默沙东、百时美施贵宝公司的Opdivo等）与其它癌症疗法进行组合，从而使治疗变得更有效力，以帮助更多的病人。目前各大药厂针对这种鸡尾酒疗法已经开展了大量临床研究，这种疗法一般以一种免疫检查点抑制剂为核心，再加上另一种不同的抗癌疗法。生物科技界投资人、一家癌症免疫基金的经理布拉德•伦卡尔在采访中对《财富》表示，这种趋势很可能会促进癌症研究界的进一步融合。“在我看来，这是一个符合逻辑的趋势。”为了进一步发挥现有药物的效能以及提高销量，很多大型制药公司可能会被迫吃进更多资产，从而掀起一波收并购的热潮。（财富中文网）

译者：朴成奎

Today is the last day of the annual American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting in Chicago. The yearly confab is the biggest cancer conference in the world, attracting more than 30,000 oncology researchers, biopharma executives, investors, and public health experts.

ASCO presents tiny biotechs and drug giants alike an opportunity to present their latest clinical trial data for both old and experimental drugs. There are also forums dedicated to policy issues such as drug pricing and medical standards—last year, former Vice President Joe Biden announced a federal Genomic Data Commons to expedite cancer research during a keynote address.

Here are some of the key stories to come out of this year's meeting.

Smaller companies grab the spotlight with impressive early results.

Several of the biggest headlines to come out of ASCO 2017 involve relatively small companies like Stamford, CT-based Loxo Oncology and China's Nanjing Legend Biotech. The former saw its stock price soar nearly 50% after unveiling that its lead experimental drug, larotrectinib, produced a response in 76% of patients with a specific kind of genetic marker in a mid-stage trial. That means that the drug could prove effective in a variety of cancers so long as patients have that marker. Nanjing Legend, meanwhile, presented early data on a new kind of cancer treatment (CAR-T, which involves re-engineering patients' immune cells to fight blood cancers) that could help pit the company against drug giants like Novartis and biotechs like Kite Pharma and Juno Therapeutics which are also working in the field. Nanjing's product targets a different kind of biomarker and is being tested in multiple myeloma, a rare blood cancer.

Pfizer's $14 billion Medivation deal comes under scrutiny.

Pfizer was considered a major winner when it snapped up cancer biotech Medivation for $14 billion last summer. That offer (a 20% premium over the firm's market value at the time) came after a frenzy of drug makers tried to land the firm and its prostate cancer treatment Xtandi, most notably France's Sanofi. But new data presented at ASCO has some analysts wondering if Pfizer overpaid. That's because Johnson & Johnson's own therapy Zytiga produced clinical results so impressive that some investors and doctors are already predicting it will become a go-to option for newly-diagnosed men with high-risk prostate cancer. Consider: Zytiga cut the death risk for patients by 38% in a trial, meaning it could soon be prescribed much earlier in the treatment process. The J&J drug had been ceding some market share to Xtandi; that trend could very well reverse itself now.

Drug combinations are the wave of the future—and could accelerate biopharma deals.

One of the biggest trends in oncology R&D is testing out combinations of next-generation cancer immunotherapies called "checkpoint inhibitors" (such as Merck's Keytruda and Bristol-Myers Squibb's Opdivo) with other cancer treatments in order to make combos which could prove more effective and help a wider swath of patients. There are mountains of clinical studies testing these kinds of drug cocktails, often featuring a backbone checkpoint inhibitor drug in addition to a different type of therapy from a cancer-focused biotech. And that could very well lead to even more consolidation in the oncology sphere, biotech investor and immuno-oncology fund manager Brad Loncar tells Fortune in an interview. "That seems like a logical trend to me," he said, since bigger drug companies will likely feel compelled to snatch up assets that could make their existing medicines more effective (and rake in more sales).