ICYMI: NYT explores how immunotherapy is revolutionizing cancer care

In case you missed it, this past weekend The New York Times published a series exploring the use of immunotherapy to combat cancer. Cell Wars features a primer on these new therapies and patient stories of how immunotherapy is transforming the treatment of their cancer. These stories of advances and gains are unprecedented, and it is just the beginning in immuno-oncology.

New and innovative immunotherapy medicines being developed by biopharmaceutical research companies are providing new hope to patients. Research shows immunotherapy is improving outcomes and survival rates for patients with some cancers, including kidney and lung. In fact, a new wave of immunotherapies developed by the biopharmaceutical sector has transformed the treatment of melanoma. Before 2011, survival was measured in months. Today, new data show that in one clinical trial, 40 percent of metastatic melanoma patients have survived three years after beginning immunotherapy.

As the burden of cancer grows in the coming years, these treatment advances, and those to come, will provide an important foundation for new waves of treatment options, offering patients and their loved ones a brighter outlook for the future.

Watch a biopharmaceutical researcher describe how he is targeting the immune system and not the tumor in his cancer research here.

Learn more about how America’s biopharmaceutical research companies are fighting cancer here.