Elcin Barker Ergun, CEO of the Menarini Group, talks about a renewed interest in drug development to address unmet needs while shaping policy.
www.staging.medscape.com/s/vi...
-TRANSCRIPT-
JOHN WHYTE: Welcome, everyone. I'm Dr. John Whyte. I'm the chief medical officer at WebMD. I'm here at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting, talking to my good friend, Elcin Barker Ergun, the president and CEO of Menarini Group. Elcin, it's great to see you again.
ELCIN BARKER ERGUN: Happy to be here and catch up.
JOHN WHYTE: I last saw you a year ago in Florence, where one of the best slides you've had that everyone has picked up is, you talked about there's a renaissance. We were in Florence, but still a renaissance in drug development. Do you still feel that way?
ELCIN BARKER ERGUN: I do. I do, actually. Yeah. So we have more and more interesting things coming. Last time we spoke about diagnostics a bit. We talked about biomarker drugs. I think maybe we talked about AI a little bit. And then of course there are ADCs. Many companies are now looking at ADC platforms. There's cell and gene therapy. So there's a lot of excitement and a lot of development. We talked about very difficult-to-treat mutations like KRAS, et cetera, and drugs coming.
And when you look at here, there's more data that we are seeing. I think it's all also about how they will come together. Oncology, when we talk about oncology, oncology is all about sequencing. So I always think it's very good that we will have drugs like ADCs, but at the same time, you will always have room for small molecules because, again, based on the characteristics of the patient and more and more targeted ways we are going, you have to really use them in the right sequence.
If you think about some metastatic diseases, breast, et cetera, if you do that sequencing right, you're going to give patients, even in metastatic disease, say, up to 10 years, rather than maybe 3 years. And you know what I mean, maybe then not so many things afterwards.
JOHN WHYTE: Now, something that's moving very fast is the topic of AI. And when you and I chatted a year ago, you were very measured about it. There are some folks who think it's going to change the whole drug development process and the way you treat patients. You were more like, "Hold on, John. It's a wait-and-see approach." How has your opinion changed, if at all?
ELCIN BARKER ERGUN: I'm still there. But if you look at what has happened afterwards, so it's always like a rush. It's a gold rush. I never see it like that because I still think that in discovery, you get a lot of efficiency with this approach, and which I still see is the No. 1 place where generative AI is going to help us.
But then you need chemical platform in order to validate that. In order to really make sure you have a really great lead asset, you optimize that and then you validate it through the traditional methodology. And the last time I remember, we spoke about regulation. And actually very quickly after that, both US and Europe came up with a regulation. Regulation is needed, definitely needed, and they're putting a lot of emphasis on screening.
JOHN WHYTE: Something you've been a leader in, and enough CEOs aren't talking about this, is the issue of antimicrobial resistance. And you and I chatted, when we were in Florence, you and I chatted about it a few months ago by phone. What do we need to be doing because here we're talking obviously a lot about cancer care, which is important, but at the same time, we've learned certainly over the last few years the issue of AMR? And do we have good stewardship? Do we have good drug development and investment?
ELCIN BARKER ERGUN: I'm really glad you brought that point again, because I feel we haven't made a leapfrog there. So it's still a very little, little improvement in the sense that some--
JOHN WHYTE: But why? Why given how many people are impacted?
ELCIN BARKER ERGUN: You're right. I think the issue is fit. Correctly, in the beginning, it was more about how do we make sure there's a pipeline coming. The fact is, with some of these IFPMA-supported fund, AMR Action Fund, et cetera, there are some drugs that are coming now out of the pipeline. The problem is there isn't enough incentive, pricing access incentive, to get them to the market. And that's a big problem.
Now, essentially the problem is accumulating and accumulating because there isn't a real-- currently the drugs are not reaching the market. And that is a huge problem still. And it's a big threat for everyone because it was 1 million, then 2 million, 3 million. And at some point, the death toll is going to be very, very high.
Transcript in its entirety can be found by clicking here: www.staging.medscape.com/s/vi...
29 июн 2024
