With so much data to cover recently, we haven’t have time for a perennial favourite, the monthly mailbag to answer BSB reader Q&A on hot oncology topics.

October has brought out quite a lot of controversy to consider, most of it happening in the last week!

Here, we consider questions on Immune Design’s phase 3 trial with their NY-ESO-1 vaccine, CMB305, which attracted both a lot of market attention and also questions from readers.

We also review a bunch of questions relating to 1L NSCLC and the upcoming readouts.  This niche is probably potentially one of the most competitive spaces in oncology R&D at present and readers seem almost insatiable for information on this topic.

It is quite a turnaround considering the last decade of numerous failed trials or even non-inferiority studies that were being conducted.

Like many readers, I can well remember sitting in freezing cold, half empty halls wondering if the latest chemo or targeted therapy doublet was going to offer a mere 2-3 months improvement in PFS and no OS benefit or not.  It was that binary and also depressing.

With the possibilities offered by immune checkpoint blockade, in a short space of time 1L NSCLC has gone from graveyard to uber intense with several companies vying to demonstrate improvements in overall survival by 6 months or more.

There’s a lot more to come here and not all of the lung trials will be positive – that’s expecting too much against the game of chance.  Here, we look at numerous factors that could make a difference, both positive and negative.

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