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Improving the Standard of Care

Conference Correspondent 

R. Donald Harvey believes that developing well-tolerated drugs is the key to improving the standard of care in managing patients with hematologic malignancies.

In general, in thinking about patients with hematologic malignancies, and how we might be able to improve standards of care, I think as we think about cancer as a whole, whether it's hematologic malignancies or solid tumors, the idea of trying to deepen responses and cure patients is important.

Helping to think about regimens and drugs that will give deep responses, sustained responses, and trying to do that in a way that will minimize side effects for patients. I work in the phase one clinical trials arena. For us, there are certain side effects that are concerning, but there are also side effects that are really more concerning to patients, like having nausea every day.

If you're going to take drugs for years on end, for example for the management of high blood pressure, they've got to be drugs that are well tolerated. Thinking in general about side effects prevention and management, and developing drugs that have better side effect profiles, are going to be pretty important to improve the care of all patients with hematologic malignancies.

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