Chemo Can Be Brutal. This FDA Effort Aims to Make It Less So.

May 6, 2024

A pipette dripping liquid into a cell array

(Washington Post) – He wonders whether he’d do better on a lower dose, “but I do what my oncologist tells me to do,” he said. Every day, he takes eight 120-milligram pills, sold under Amgen’s brand name Lumakras.

Crosslin’s concern lies at the heart of a Food and Drug Administration effort to make cancer drugs less toxic and more effective. Cancer drug trials are structured to promote high doses, which then become routine patient care. With evidence that thousands of patients become so ill that they skip doses or stop taking the drugs — risking resurgence of their cancers — the FDA has begun requiring companies to pinpoint the right dosage before drugs reach patients. (Read More)