Additional Biomarkers Give Hope to Breast Cancer Research

In the middle of breast cancer awareness month, independent analysis firm Datamonitor Healthcare has highlighted a number of potential drug targets that could be used to treat the most frequent cancer among women.

As multiple signalling pathways are often disrupted in cancer cells, a combination of therapies, which target different biomarkers, may hold the key to effective breast cancer therapies.

Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) remains the focus of many early-stage pipeline drugs, but other targets such as phosphoinositide-3-kinases (PI3Ks) and cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) are increasingly becoming the focus of research into new drugs.

Activating PIK3 CA mutations in the PI3K pathway are common to approximately 30% of breast cancer tumours and has been linked to the resistance of chemotherapy. The number of therapeutics targeting the PI3K pathway has increased during the past few years, with preclinical and clinical studies showing a degree of efficacy. For example, Novartis’s buparlisib is a pan-PI3K inhibitor currently in Phase III development.

Pfizer and Onyx’s palbociclib is an interesting and highly selective CDK inhibitor which targets CDK5 and CDK6 resulting in G1 arrest and, therefore, halts cell and tumour growth.

Dr Colin White, lead oncology analyst at Datamonitor Healthcare said: “Past difficulties in introducing new biological drugs into the clinical setting have identified the need for more selective R&D models and appropriate clinical trial designs. This involves the identification of biomarkers to predict a patient’s response to therapy.

“Predictive biomarkers can provide invaluable information for the identification of patients who are likely to respond to a specific drug. These drug targets will allow the development of safe and effective treatment plans for individual patients which could have a huge impact on the treatment of breast cancer.”