The FDA Oncology Center of Excellence and precision medicine

Abstract

In January 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) formally established the Oncology Center of Excellence (OCE) to streamline the development of cancer therapies by uniting experts from FDA product centers to conduct expedited review of drugs, biologics, and devices. In May 2017, the FDA approved a cancer treatment based on a biomarker, without regard to the tumor’s site, by granting accelerated approval to pembrolizumab for patients with solid tumors that have the microsatellite instability-high or mismatch repair deficient biomarker. We describe here the OCE’s role in this first site-agnostic approval and OCE programs for further advancement of oncology-related regulatory science and policy. In addition, the FDA’s four expedited review programs that enable transformative therapies to reach patients with life-threatening malignancies earlier in the development process are key to the continued rapid development of safe and effective therapies for patients with few or no other treatment options. These changes at FDA are taking place in the context of recent progress in the understanding of the genetic and immunologic foundations of cancer, resulting in the development of targeted therapies and immunotherapies. The traditional system of phased clinical trials has evolved as early trials of breakthrough therapies use expansion cohorts in a process known as seamless drug development. Increasingly, FDA approvals of targeted therapies are likely to have contemporaneous approvals of companion diagnostics to identify patients whose cancers harbor actionable abnormalities. Impact statement This publication describes the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) first site-agnostic oncology drug approval, a landmark event in the history of cancer drug development. The role of the FDA’s newly established Oncology Center of Excellence (OCE) in this approval is described, as are several OCE programs to advance excellence in regulatory science in the era of precision medicine. Also provided is an overview of FDA’s expedited drug review programs, which are important to the continued acceleration of therapeutics development for patients with life-threatening diseases and few or no other treatment options.