The Next Generation of Therapies

Oncology is undergoing a profound transformation. We’ve moved from treating cancer with surgery, radiation and chemotherapy alone to offering more personalized and often less disruptive options. With new options such as targeted immunotherapies and bispecifics, we can match treatments to patients based on molecular characteristics that represent vulnerabilities within a cancer and can be targeted for cancer control.

This marks a shift in both the science and the patient-centric approach to treatment. In my Texas Oncology practice, I treat many people with metastatic breast cancer.

They are parents, friends, caregivers and leaders. They go to work, attend soccer practice, stay engaged in their hobbies, make dinner for their families and live full lives, all while managing cancer as a chronic condition, often like diabetes or hypertension. The focus has shifted from simply extending life to extending life while preserving its quality.

That’s the future of oncology in action, and increasingly, that future is taking shape in community settings. Community practices are continuing to evolve alongside the therapies we offer. As treatment becomes more personalized, multimodal and complex, the way we deliver care must become more integrated, efficient and responsive to what patients truly need.

Community Oncology’s Expanding Role

Most patients in the U.S. receive cancer treatment in community settings, and for good reason. Community oncology offers accessibility, continuity and a model of care that allows patients to stay anchored in their everyday lives. When patients are treated in community settings, they can continue working, parenting and staying active in their communities. They get to live their lives and experience less disruption as they receive high-quality cancer care.

While community care is growing, the demands on community practices are also expanding. Today’s therapies are increasingly complex and specialized. Administering care now requires a greater focus on safety, efficiency and precision than ever before, and care teams must be agile, informed and well supported. Delivering on the promise of the next generation of cancer therapies will depend on our ability to scale up while preserving what makes community practices so effective: their accessibility and connectivity to patients’ daily lives.

Innovations and Infrastructure

Many community practices have already started taking proactive steps to ensure they can deliver innovative new therapies like CAR T and bispecifics to patients. Using these novel therapies requires sophisticated planning and preparation and may require community practices to lean into the experience of partner organizations. For our practice, being part of The US Oncology Network (The Network) has enabled us to leverage playbooks  and established safety protocols, which have helped us to build  the capacity to deliver those therapies in an outpatient setting.

Biopharma can collaborate with community practices to access electronic health record data, enabling analysis of treatment patterns, mutation prevalence and outcomes in younger versus older patients. These insights can inform clinical trial design, particularly if unique mutations, trends or treatment responses are identified. Once trials are launched, practices can efficiently recruit appropriate patients from their heterogeneous patient populations.

Workforce planning is just as important. We’ve seen the growing roles of advanced practice providers and investments in care management programs to address staffing shortages and help patients navigate increasingly complex treatment journeys. 

To sustain innovation, we’ve also seen increased prioritization of research in community practices and with our biopharma partners. Through The Network’s partnership with SCRI, we’re offering patients access to hundreds of clinical trials nationwide.  Bringing these trials into the community means more patients have access to potentially life-extending therapies without having to travel to larger academic medical centers.

How Biopharma Can Help

We’re fortunate to have long-standing partnerships with the biopharma community. But as the pace of innovation accelerates, so too does the need for thoughtful collaboration. There are several key areas where biopharma can make a meaningful impact in supporting community oncology. 

The first is patient education. Educated patients are less anxious, manage side effects better, are more compliant with therapy and ultimately live longer. Some of our biopharma partners are already producing great patient educational materials, but there’s an opportunity to further integrate those materials into practice workflows and make them more brief, visual and digestible.

Patients and their caregivers are looking for short-form videos, curated explainers and content that reflects diverse learning styles — and biopharma is well positioned to create these types of materials.  These same principles also apply to clinician education.

Community oncologists want timely, evidence-based updates on therapies and protocols, and they need that content to fit into their already demanding schedules. Peer-reviewed education, unbiased CME and insights delivered through third-party platforms are preferred.  The more content is tailored to real-world practice and curated for credibility, the more likely it is to be adopted.

Moving Forward Together

The therapies we use to treat cancer are advancing faster than ever. That progress is worth celebrating, but its full impact will be realized only if we deliver it effectively, equitably and at scale. Doing so will require intentional partnership.

From biopharma to clinicians, from research networks to technology partners, each of us has a role to play in supporting the delivery of these life-changing therapies.

We must work together to improve infrastructure, streamline clinical trial participation and provide clear, accessible education for both patients and providers.

We know what’s possible with this next era of cancer care. Now it’s up to all of us to make it accessible to every patient, everywhere.