From the editor: Big news from Roche and Novartis raise hopes for an improved treatment of breast cancer. See some of the enthusiastic comments below. Roche’s data on pertuzumab is particularly impressive and suggests that Herceptin treatment might be complemented with pertuzumab in the future. Interestingly, this raises the possibility that new diagnostics tests will be needed to identify the optimal combination of drugs for each patient. We might be getting closer to a personalized treatment of breast cancer.

“Breast cancer experts are cheering what could be some of the biggest advances in more than a decade: two new medicines that significantly delay the time until women with very advanced cases get worse.” (Read the full article: R&D Mag – Life Sciences, Dec 7, 2011, Marilynn Marchione.)

“Roche, Novartis showcase game-changing breast cancer drug data. Roche and Novartis put out new data yesterday on two treatments that promise to fundamentally reshape the way the majority of breast cancer patients are treated. Roche clearly impressed specialists and analysts with the news that pertuzumab combined with Herceptin and chemotherapy checked tumor development for a median of slightly more than six months–from 8.5 months to 12.4 months. And Novartis’s Afinitor demonstrated a four-month delay in disease progression among metastatic patients.” (Read the full article: FierceBiotech News, Dec 8, 2011, John Carroll.)

“The dual HER2 antibody therapy is showing promise but is still in clinical trials to determine who are the best HER2 patients to treat and in what setting,” commented Ben Ho Park, MD, PhD, of Johns Hopkins University, in an email to MedPage Today and ABC News. (Read the full article: MedPageToday, Dec 08, Ed Susman)