Cromos Pharma celebrates Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Breast cancer is the most commonly occurring cancer in women and the second only to lung cancer as the most common cancer overall. The developed nations in North America and Western Europe lead the world in incidence (well over 60 and up to 95 per 100,000 women ages 0-69). And yet, while mortality rates in these regions have shrunk to less than 15%, in certain less developed nations in Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America, even with significantly lower incidence rates (as low as 15-20 patients per 100,000), the mortality rates remain as high as 50% or more, and represent 58% of global mortality. How can we correct this imbalance?

At Cromos Pharma, our first clinical research project was conducted in breast cancer, in only one country in Eastern Europe. Since that modest beginning, Cromos and its team have participated in dozens of studies in breast cancer patients throughout the world; the preponderance of our patients was enrolled in less developed nations. Our studies have ranged from innovative treatments to cost-advantaged generic and biosimilar therapies, from treatments for only certain types (there are many types of breast cancers, and several methods of predicting response rates to targeted therapies, based upon hormone biomarkers) to studies encompassing all patients diagnosed with breast cancer. We have studied companion therapies that enable breast cancer patients to withstand the rigors of traditional radiation and chemotherapy, and newer, gentler formulations enabling patients to tolerate higher doses for a longer treatment duration.

What do Cromos Pharma’s breast cancer research projects have in common? They have been aimed at introducing treatment modalities from developed nations to thousands of patients who live in the less developed regions of the world. They have been designed to introduce new medicines as well as less expensive but proven follow-on generic and biosimilar medications to regions where healthcare reimbursement is not available for novel or costly therapies. They have enabled physicians to provide education, early diagnosis, and advanced, targeted therapies to their patients. They have enabled many women in less developed nations to be cured, or to live with, rather than die from this disease. They have been aimed at correcting the imbalance.

Sources: Breast Health Global Initiative at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center; ABC Global Alliance, American Cancer Society, World Health Organization (WHO), Cromos Pharma analysis of internal project files, non-confidential summary.