-Synthesis of part 2-
Round table 1 – accelerate innovation : more research, differently.
How Roche laboratory can accelerate research ?
Leila Kockler, solid tumors medical Director at Roche has presented the iMATRIX initiative (phase I-II) which gives children molecules in development at Roche. 90 children are part of the iMATRIX protocole in Europe and the United States, among which 18 in France. This « Master Protocole » will accelerate the evaluation of molecules and is complementary to eSMART
What about the pediatric immunotherapy ?
Doctor Aurélien Marabelle, scientific immunotherapy Director at Gustave Roussy, explains that « the immunotherapy targets the immune system, with the objective to break the immunological tolerance against cancer and help the body to fight against the disease »
Those medicines work in specific cases (many mutations in the genome, immune infiltrations) that we don’t always find in pediatric cancers. Researches are in progress with current trials to know what kind of tumors will benefit from this new treatments. « There are child tumoral indications that are close to adults, precisely in lymphomas, Hotchkin lymphomas, that will probably benefit from those medicines »
Professor Norbert Ifrah, INCa president, has presented the pediatric Integrated Research Action Programme which call for tenders has been launched in order to develop basic research and to make transverse and collaborative programs emerge between different teams.
Doctor Gudrun Schleiemacher, pediatric oncologist at Curie Institute : « we are at the beginning of a new era. We have means and tehnologies that we could not dream of 10 years ago. We can now establish the molecular and immunological characterizations as soon as the diagnosis is given for higher risk tumors.» Micchado will allow to understand how and why higher risk tumors evolve during treatment. We hope then to be able to change first-line treatments. We hope to include the first patients within summer.
At the end of this 2nd part, the actions to take are :
– With the help of laboratories, to set-up systems to prioritize the molecules potentially the most efficient with children (next meeting at EMA).
– To think about the development of basic research thanks to new opportunities coming from sequencing.
