Anticancer Drugs Professional Committee was Organized First Time in China

      

 picture source: Oncology Frontier(China)

In February 6, 2015, Beijing, the first national Anticancer Medicine Professional Committee of China Pharmaceutical Society was inaugurated .

Prof. Shi Yuan-Kai, vice president of Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Science, was elected the first Chair.

In his speech, Professor Shi said the goal of this committee is to help oncologist to perform clinical trials and to engage in translational research to find new anticancer drugs. The committee will organize academic conference to speed up above goals.

China tops the world, in cancer rate and mortality. According to the World Cancer Report 2008,1/5 of newly diagnosed cancer cases worldwide,about 3.07 millions;and 1/4 cancer death, about 2.2 millions was estimated from China in 2012.

In the contrary, there are not many novel new cancer drugs from China, and the long process of clinical trials before introduction of foreign medicines into patients defers their availability, even if they are expensive.

In the end of 2014, two novel anticancer drugs were launched into Chinese market. One isApatinib, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor that selectively inhibit VEGFR-2 in the treatment of advanced gastric cancer. Another was Chidamide, a histone deacetylase inhibitor in the treatment of refractory and relapsed PTCL, in which Professor Shi was the principal investigator.

It seems that China is catching up in the development of novel anticancer drugs, and hopefully, this committee will push and pull, speed up the communication and collaborative effort into productive outcomes.