Unmet Needs and the Increased Use of Targeted Therapy in CLL

Steven Peskin, MD, MBA, FACP: The question is, how is managed care shifting from chemotherapy to targeted therapy [in] chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL)? The use of, and application of, targeted therapies, precision medicine, and immunotherapies as being more effective with better safety profiles, side effect profiles, [and] tolerability profiles, is very, very exciting.

We are certainly very positive about that—sanguine about that. [We are] working with our clinical partners to help them through analytics (predictive analytics), harmonization of our data, and tools with our clinical organizations. So, it is to my way of thinking [that this] really represents the future of cancer care.

[With regard to] CLL unmet needs (in treatment), would we like to have a cure? Absolutely. So, that would be an unmet need. If we were able to have our wish list, and we were able to develop a cancer vaccine—something that was truly blocking or arresting the pathway that led to the genetic defect or protein expression, gene expression (what’s called epigenetics)—then that would be the unmet need. That’s certainly what major scientists are working on, and I’m sure there will be Nobel Prizes conferred over the next generation.