The 2020 World Conference on Lung Cancer, which was scheduled to take place in Singapore last August, is set to kick off virtually later this week. The postponement gave companies time to generate additional data as they battle to treat patients with their targeted therapies.
Mirati Therapeutics Inc.’s update on the phase I/II Krystal trial of the KRAS-G12C-targeting adagrasib (MRTX-849) was arguably the most eagerly awaited news, and certainly the most eagerly awaited KRAS-targeting news, to come out of the 2020 EORTC-NCI-AACR (ENA) Molecular Targets meeting. KRAS is one of the most frequently mutated oncogenes across a wide swath of solid tumors, and has been one of the toughest nuts to crack as far as druggability is concerned.
Targeted therapy offers an opportunity for personalized medicine that's specific for a patient's tumor, but the hyper-focused treatment creates possibilities for cells to mutate and become resistant to the therapy.