It’s a tough call trying to figure out which pill may come out on top, given that Belviq has the better safety profile and VIVUS, Inc. (NASDAQ:VVUS) delivered better weight loss in trials; however, the target audience is large enough that it may not matter.
The butt of the problem
Smoking is another huge factor that has been decisively linked to increasing your risk of developing cancer. In my Tackling Cancer series, smoking was practically a universal risk factor for the 12 most commonly diagnosed cancer types, and cigarette smoking was directly responsible for 37% of all cancer deaths in the U.S. between 2000 and 2004.
Source: Jo Naylor, Flickr.
Unfortunately, many cancers caused by smoking tend to be some of the most aggressive and virulent types, such as lung and pancreatic cancer. While medications do exist to treat lung cancer, the five-year prognosis is fairly grim, with a five-year survival rate of just 17%. This could be where Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) or Bristol Myers Squibb Co. (NYSE:BMY) swoops in to save the day.
Both companies are currently working on a new class of drug in the U.S. known as PD-1 inhibitors, which are suspected to enhance the body’s own immune response to attack cancer cells. Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK)’s lambrolizumab has already received the rare breakthrough therapy designation from the FDA and delivered an overall response rate of 38% in multiple myeloma studies. The response rate was slightly higher, 40%, for Bristol Myers Squibb Co. (NYSE:BMY)’s nivolumab, which was combined with its FDA-approved therapy Yervoy to treat multiple myeloma. It’s expected that PD-1 inhibitors could have success in treating the most common form of lung cancer, non-small-cell lung cancer, and their development should be closely monitored.
Overexposure
A third common form of cancer that’s under our control is melanoma, a type of skin cancer that isn’t often as deadly as some of the aforementioned cancers but is caused from overexposure to the sun over the course our lives. There’s nothing wrong with spending some time in the sun, but like everything in life it should be done with some moderation.
While this may not be a huge problem for those polled in the U.K. (or for me in the Seattle suburbs), it is still a big problem at least in the U.S., with nearly 77,000 estimated diagnoses in the U.S. this year alone.
The best and most obvious solution here is to wear protective sunscreen and reduce your exposure to the sun to a moderate level. If a person is already well beyond that stage, two newly approved melanoma drugs from GlaxoSmithKline plc (ADR) (NYSE:GSK) may ultimately be called upon to do the trick. The drugs, Tafinlar and Mekinist, target the most common type of skin cancer that expresses the BRAF mutation. In trials, progression-free survival of the combo improved to 9.4 months, compared with 5.8 months for those taking Tafinlar by itself, with a whopping 41% of patients not exhibiting any signs of disease progression at 12 months!
Live long and conquer
There’s nothing wrong with having fears, but we also have to understand that many of the tools capable of reducing those fears are within our grasp. Cancer is certainly a scary six-letter word, but we have rapidly improving medicines capable of extended patients’ quality of life, and a better understanding of the risk factors that can lead to an elevated risk of developing cancer.
In addition, not only do we have the tools necessary to reduce our cancer risk, but we also have a pathway to potentially increase our wealth in the process. The aforementioned companies are literally but a handful of those that stand to benefit from treating cancer patients. As research dollars and education progresses, it’s only logical to expect the quality of cancer treatments to improve as well.
The article What’s Your Biggest Fear? The Answer Might Scare You! originally appeared on Fool.com is written by Sean Williams.
Fool contributor Sean Williams has no material interest in any companies mentioned in this article. You can follow him on CAPS under the screen name TMFUltraLong, track every pick he makes under the screen name TrackUltraLong, and check him out on Twitter, where he goes by the handle @TMFUltraLong.
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