2. Cancer is a Challenge
Cancer is common in humans – a public health problem
~1 of every 3 women will develop cancer
~1 of every 2 men will develop cancer
~1.7 million Americans will be diagnosed with cancer this year
>600 thousand Americans will die from cancer this year
{9/11 two hundred times each year!}

3. Cancer – we are having successes
Cancer death rates have decreased 25% in past 25 years
80% of children with cancer will be cured of their disease
~67% of adults with cancer will live at least 5 years after a cancer diagnosis
~14 million cancer survivors in the U.S.
New therapies are now constantly being developed
Targeted tumor-specific therapies
Immunotherapies {inducing the patient’s immune system to fight the cancer}

4. Cancer Remains a Challenge
There remains a great need for new cancer therapies – better efficacy, less toxicity
The process of developing new cancer therapies is both slow and costly:
Average of years to bring a new therapeutic from target validation to marketplace
<<10% of new drugs developed make it to the marketplace
~$1.8 billion to bring a new drug to market

5. Cancer Remains a Challenge
Many novel drug cancer drug candidates fail in human clinical trials despite evidence of efficacy in traditional pre-clinical mouse tumor models
These mouse tumor models lack key characteristics of human cancers
Long latency
Natural causation
Genomic instability
Tumor heterogeneity
Tumor microenvironment characteristics

6. The Cancer Challenge and Opportunity
Cancer is common in Pets
>170 million pets in U.S. (80 million dogs; >90 million cats)
~1 million dogs treated for cancer in U.S. yearly
Cancer kills 50% of dogs >10yo (33% of younger dogs)
33% of cats die from cancer
Pet owners are highly motivated to enroll in clinical studies

7. The Cancer Opportunity
Many canine tumors share many characteristics with human cancers (e.g. sarcomas, melanoma, lymphoma, glioma, etc.)
Histologic appearance
Tumor genetics (some genomics information available; need more)
Biologic behavior
Molecular targets
Therapeutic response
Acquired resistance
Recurrence
Metastasis

8. The Cancer Opportunity
Consortium for
Canine Comparative Oncology!!
A partnership:
Collaborate in pre-clinical and clinical research activities
Advance understanding of cancer causation
Identify cancer susceptibility genes
Identify environmental factors involved in cancer
Test novel agents
Pre-clinical testing
Coordinate clinical trials in canines and humans
Joint partnerships with Pharma/Biotech
PK/PD, biomarkers, dosing/scheduling, combinations

9. C30 Pilot Projects –
A Phase II Clinical Trial and Pharmacodynamics Study of CP-DOX in Dogs 
Ashutosh Chilkoti, PhD and Steven Suter, DVM, PhD, Diplomate ACVIM 
A Mouse to Dog to Human (MDH) Drug Discovery Pipeline 
William Eward, MD, DVM and Matthew Breen, PhD 
Investigating the Dog as a Preclinical Model for Melanoma Therapy Targeting the
Long Non-Coding RNA SAMMSON 
Shiaowen David Hsu, MD, PhD and Jennifer Luff, VMD, PhD
Comparative Analysis of the Impact of BRAF Mutations in Bladder Cancer – A Marker
of Advancing Disease? 
Matthew Breen, PhD and Brant Inman, MD 
Imaging Cycling Hypoxia in Canine Tumors During Radiotherapy Dosing 
Hiroto Yoshikawa, DVM, PhD and Xiaofeng Steve Zhang, PhD