Dive Brief:
- AstraZeneca is releasing preclinical data on more than 50 of its cancer drugs, including 10,000 tested combinations, as part of an effort to crowdsource ideas for the best cancer drug combos.
- This initiative is part of the DREAM Challenge, an open-innovation, non-profit project in which scientists from various institutions and locations can collaborate on brain-storming and data-crunching.
- The data will be matched with genomic information from Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.
Dive Insight:
When it comes to oncology and cancer treatment regimens, combination therapy is the winning approach for tackling many of the hardest-to-treat cancers. The general idea is to compromise the machinery that drives cancer cells in different ways, thereby inducing cell death and leveraging the cytotoxic properties of different drugs. And now that immuno-oncology drugs, such as Opdivo (nivolumab), are available, an entirely new approach has been factored into this paradigm. What this means is that there are thousands of undiscovered approachs to treating various cancers.
Open-innovation research has proven effective over the years. The hope now is that with the support of companies like AZ and charities, such as Wellcome Trust, cancer researchers will ultimately be able to advance oncologic research more quickly and improve the standard of care.