SARC’s Board Chair Honored by SFA at 10th Annual Gala

McHenry (Mac) Tichenor, Board Chair of SARC was honored along with his wife Lisa Tichenor at the Sarcoma Foundation of America’s 10th Annual Gala this past Monday, April 30, 2012 in New York City.

Mac and Lisa received the SFA Vision of Hope Award.  “The Vision of Hope Award is given annually to a deserving visionary, who through his or her public or private actions, has resulted in the advancement of care, treatment and hope for sarcoma patients,” said Mark Thornton, MD,PhD, President, SFA.

Mac and Lisa are founders of the The QuadW Foundation (What Would Willie Want) in memory of their son Willie Tichenor who died in 2006, at age 19 of osteosarcoma. The QuadW is committed to finding better treatments and cures for sarcoma.

Mac Tichenor has been SARC’s Chairman of the Board since November 2010. Since that time he has brought his business expertise and dedication to continue SARC’s vision in engaging all appropriate and necessary resources to develop new therapeutic options that lead to improved outcomes for patients diagnosed with sarcoma.

Congratulations Lisa and Mac Tichenor!

George Demetri MD, Director, Ludwig Center at Dana-Farber / Harvard Cancer Center and Sarcoma Center responds to ODAC review

Boston, MA, March 22, 2012. It is an exceptionally positive outcome that the Oncology Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC), comprising a panel of independent multidisciplinary experts from outside the sarcoma community with representation from a few invited external sarcoma experts, has advised the US FDA to approve pazopanib as a safe and effective treatment for patients with metastatic soft tissue sarcoma (STS) following progression after prior chemotherapy.  Assuming the FDA follows through on this expert recommendation, this will bring the first new drug to sarcoma patients since the early 1970’s (other than the kinase inhibitors, imatinib and sunitinib, for GIST or DFSP).  This represents a major regulatory step forward to bring a new “targeted therapy” non-chemotherapy oral treatment option to STS patients in need.  It is important to note that both GIST and liposarcomas (“adipocytic” sarcomas) were not tested in the clinical trial reviewed by the FDA, and so further research would be necessary to explore further any activity in those sarcoma subtypes.  The STS development of pazopanib, a drug which is already approved worldwide for the treatment of advanced kidney carcinoma, represented a very constructive collaboration between academia and industry, with the sponsorship of GlaxoSmithKline.  Based on a logical development plan pioneerd by one of the premier sarcoma research groups in the world (the Soft Tissue and Bone Sarcoma Group of the EORTC), a world wide team of investigators, including EORTC centers as well as other expert sarcoma investigators based in the US, Asia, and elsewhere, worked together for the good of patients everywhere.  This ODAC approval represents a major step forward to bring a new treatment option for our STS patients in need, and this is simply the start of the story:  many more strategies lie ahead to optimize the use of this new agent and other standard and novel drugs in sarcoma patients.

George Demetri MD

Director, Ludwig Center at Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center and Sarcoma Center