DUBLIN – For too many cancer patients, therapy still means no more than prolonging the inevitable. Cancer drug developers are proud to trot out numbers detailing objective response rates to novel drug candidates, along with progression-free survival and overall survival data. They're not shy about charging high prices for their product offerings either. But the grim reality is that five-year survival rates for many cancers – including lung, liver and esophageal – are still well below 50 percent, even if cancer death rates continue to decline in the U.S. and other high-income countries.