Cancer's true breakthroughs.

A new regulatory pathway established last year allows drugs with dramatic early clinical promise to be expedited to the market quicker than ever before. To date, most of these 'breakthrough' designations have gone to cancer agents, raising the prospect of faster access to the latest lifesaving therapies for the estimated 4,500 people newly diagnosed with cancer each day in the US. Elie Dolgin looks at what sets these breakthrough medicines apart.