ASCO 2015 Highlights

At the Association for Value-Based Cancer Care (AVBCC) second annual meeting, Winston Wong, PharmD, expressed concerns that the site of delivery of cancer care affects efforts to rein in costs and provide value in cancer care. Wong expanded on this issue in the following interview.

Houston, TX—Jennifer Malin, MD, PhD, Manager and Medical Director of Oncology at WellPoint, described new approaches that can help to align reimbursement in oncology to enhance value and patient outcomes by focusing on episode of care rather than on the drugs, by shifting physicians’ incentives to support patient-centered decision-making.

At the Association for Value-Based Cancer Care (AVBCC) second annual meeting, Ira M. Klein, MD, MBA, maintained that establishing value in cancer care is not just up to healthcare strategists. AVBCC asked Dr Klein to elaborate on this idea in the following interview.

Houston, TX—Defining value in cancer care is like a group of blind men trying to define what an elephant is, by touch: it is described according to one’s own experience and perceptions, said Mark Zitter, MBA, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, The Zitter Group, San Francisco, CA.

In Michigan, 7 oncology practices are now participating in Priority Health’s oncology medical home. At the Association for Value-Based Cancer Care second annual conference, John Fox, MD, MHA, Associate Vice President for Medical Affairs, Priority Health, Grand Rapids, MI, described the key components and goals of this model.

The Mevion S250 Proton Therapy System has received marketing approval in Europe but is still pending clearance by the US Food and Drug Administration.

Injecting antibodies and T cells with cancer stem cells may signal a new paradigm for anticancer immunotherapy, according to a recent study.

The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has awarded $10.5 million to 10 researchers to develop technologies that will assist research on millions of genomic elements that play a role in determining what genes are expressed, and at what levels in different cells.

Genomic Health announced it has formed an alliance with OncoMed Pharmaceuticals to support the development of DNA-sequencing technologies in the search for diagnostic biomarkers that could identify patients who will best benefit from targeted drugs currently in development by OncoMed.

A recent survey of US and Canadian oncologists explored how they perceive cost-effectiveness of the new and costly cancer treatments, and whether providers are considering value questions of quality versus cost in their clinical decisions.