Biomarkers and personalised treatments, diagnosis and prevention, the perfect combination against cancer
37% of all clinical trials being developed in Spain are aimed at treating oncological diseases
New drugs are having a direct impact on patient survival, according to the SEOM
Tobacco, infections, alcohol, sedentary lifestyles and inadequate diets are responsible for a third of cancers, according to the WHO
Every 4 February is World Cancer Day.
Farmaindustria.es
Cancer is one of the main causes of mortality in the world. In Spain, the number of cases continues to grow. The number of cancers diagnosed in our country in 2025 is expected to be close to 300,000 cases, according to the report Las cifras del cáncer en España 2025, prepared by the Spanish Society of Medical Oncology (SEOM) and the Spanish Network of Cancer Registries (Redecan) and presented last week.
Faced with these figures, professionals and the healthcare system, researchers, patients and pharmaceutical companies are looking squarely at the challenge posed by oncological diseases for society, and are fighting them from various fronts, including the role of research and the value provided by therapeutic innovation, both in drugs and biomarkers, improved diagnosis and work on prevention.
The latest report on European Medicines Agency (EMA) approvals in 2024 reveals that, “of the 46 medicines with previously unknown active substances, almost 30% (13) are for the treatment of cancer. And four of them are orphan drugs for the treatment of oncological processes of minority diseases”. This was recalled by the Director of the Pharmaceutical Provision and Access Department of Farmaindustria, Isabel Pineros, during her participation in the VII Spanish Summit against Cancer, which was held this Monday in Madrid and promoted by the Spanish Cancer Patients Group (Gepac).
Alongside approvals of new medicines, 345 clinical trials for cancer treatments (83% of which are sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry), accounting for 37% of all studies launched in 2024. It is particularly noteworthy that most of these trials are phase 1 and phase 2, which means that patients participating in these studies have the possibility of using them at an early stage of their development and of gaining earlier access to a new hope for treatment.
On the other hand, greater knowledge of cancer biology, the origin of precision oncology, is already making it possible to identify biomarkers for many of the almost 300,000 new cases of cancer in Spain and to select the most effective and safest treatments for each patient, achieving greater personalisation of cancer treatments. ‘This precision medicine, together with targeted therapies and modern immunotherapy, has contributed to the improvement in cancer survival achieved in recent decades,’ said SEOM president César A. Rodríguez, during the presentation of its annual report.
Direct impact of new drugs on survival
New treatments are having a direct impact on the survival of cancer patients in Spain, which has doubled in the last 40 years. According to the SEOM report, notable variations in 2024 include an increase in survival in chronic myeloid leukaemia ‘due to the inclusion of a new effective drug in its therapeutics, imatinib, and an increase in survival in non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, probably due to the incorporation of rituximab’.
He also highlights the maintenance of high survival in prostate cancer as a result of the widespread use of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) for diagnosis. “It is possible that in the coming years we will see increases in survival in other cancers related to the application of new treatments for specific cancers. And most likely we will also see an increase in colorectal cancer survival associated with the increased implementation of colorectal cancer screening in recent years,” adds the SEOM study.
Although diagnostic tools and cancer treatments have made great strides in recent decades, they require a more flexible, innovative and equitable system of evaluation and access for patients. Because in Spain, waiting times for patients are still very long. According to Pineros, ‘we should establish procedures that mirror those of European authorisation (accelerated, conditional, exceptional) so that patients have rapid access to innovative medicines’.
As proposed by Farmaindustria, it is necessary to ensure early access to innovative medicines through an accelerated procedure for the medicines most needed by patients. “We have a problem of delays in the availability of innovative medicines in Spain, in addition to the fact that when these new treatments are already authorised, doctors have to use them under restrictive conditions, because they are financed only for some patients. This is the case for more than 47% of the oncology drugs approved in our country,” Pineros lamented at the Gepac forum. This, added to the heterogeneous use of biomarkers between autonomous communities, aggravates the situation for patients.
Prevention is the third pillar to control the escalation of cancer. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), one third of cancer deaths are due to the five most important preventable factors: tobacco, infections, alcohol, sedentary lifestyles and inadequate diets (insufficient fruit and vegetables). Continuing to work at all levels on health education and raising social awareness of modifiable factors must be an inseparable part of a comprehensive cancer strategy.
“It is essential to focus on the heterogeneity that the word cancer encompasses and to make it known to the entire population. Cancer is not a single disease, there are different tumours, each with a different biology, treatment and prognosis,” the SEOM reminds us on World Cancer Day, which is celebrated every 4 February.
‘Isabel Pineros, during her participation in the VII Spanish Summit Against Cancer’.
Farmaindustria.es
