Sobering numbers of cancer drugs

“Less than 20% (19.3%) of cancer science discoveries touted as breakthrough, landmark, groundbreaking, or highly promising translated into clinical therapy or practice with a median follow-up of 15 years.

Among clinically adopted treatments in our analysis, most were approved based on surrogate endpoints and only 9.1% found a survival benefit. Among the eight therapies with an OS benefit, the median benefit provided was 2.8 months.

Our results suggest that claims of major discovery are associated only with modest rates of ultimate clinical success.”