Academia and industry - working together to fight cancer.

Academic centers and the pharmaceutical industry are working well together to improve the treatment of cancer. New agents are being tested in the clinic, including monoclonal antibodies with little toxicity. Academics help industry by identifying new targets for drugs and by developing the prospective databases to profile tumors and patients to identify those that will respond and engage in blue sky research. Academic centers must be cost and time-effective. Academics can help patients and industry by developing new and more appropriate end-points for assessing the new anticancer agents. The USA has been leading the way in that area with its accelerated approval and priority review systems and this, combined with the size of the USA market, will make it the predominant study area unless there are reforms in the EU.