Eli Lilly, Merck (MSD) and Pfizer have joined forces to accelerate research and improve treatment of lung and gastric cancers in Asia.
The companies have announced the formation of the Asian Cancer Research Group (ACRG), established to improve the knowledge of cancers prevalent in Asia and to accelerate drug discovery efforts by freely sharing data with the scientific community.
The ACRG’s formation reflects a growing trend for large pharma companies to combine their resources and expertise to rapidly increase their knowledge of disease and disease processes.
“Through its work and the subsequent sharing of information, the ACRG hopes to empower researchers, foster innovation and improve the prognosis and treatment of patients with cancer,” said Gary Gilliland, Senior Vice President and franchise head, Oncology, Merck Research Laboratories.
It is planned that the ACRG will initially focus on lung and gastric cancers, two of the most common forms of cancer in Asia.
Up to 40% of patients with lung cancer in Asia demonstrate an EGFR mutation. This mutation is relatively rare in Western patients and results in differences in response to some treatments.
“Environmental and genetic factors are believed to underlie the dramatic differences in the molecular subtypes and incidence of cancers in Asia and other parts of the world,” said Neil Gibson, Chief Scientific Officer of Pfizer’s Oncology Research Unit. “Although some progress has been achieved in the last few years in understanding and treating these cancers, they remain a huge unmet need and a disproportionate health burden to Asian patients.”
Over the next two years, Lilly, Merck and Pfizer have committed to creating one of the most extensive pharmacogenomic cancer databases. This database will be made publicly available to researchers and gradually populated with clinical data from further analysis.