To simply say, “it’s complicated!” is a often bit of an understatement in cancer research.

Imagine any advanced cancer in the refractory setting might have multiple changes and defects driving oncogenic activity, which makes targeting just one or even two of them somewhat limiting in terms of the potential impact on outcomes.

Then there’s the whole separate debate of which approach to a given target is the best one – a small molecule degrader or an inhibitor or an antibody?

The best way to tackle these issues is to develop a detailed roadmap with various key landmarks identified, plus flags highlighting areas for further investigation.

Perhaps an underrated aspect of oncology research is the increasing use of chemical probes (degraders or small molecules) to explore the underlying biology in order to understand what needs to be done next in the form of resistance mechanisms or synergies, for example.

The findings generated from this research could then lead to the development of next generation pipeline agents or suggest novel combination approaches to evaluate, which may not have been obvious at first sight.

In this latest post, we take a look at various examples using protein degraders and small molecules though the lens of select patient populations, various tumour targets, and even mechanisms of resistance…

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