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Jump to Key Points From new precision therapies to AI-powered detection tools, the past year has seen major advances in cancer care, according to the annual Cancer Progress Reportfrom the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).
This year’s report had plenty of highlights — including new therapies for rarer cancers, expanded uses for molecularly targeted drugs, and long-awaited good news on the cancer vaccine front.
At the same, the AACR warned that future progress could be stymied by proposed federal rules that could allow research grants to be awarded or rejected based on politics.
It’s “a real concern, because I don’t think it’s necessarily going to reflect what’s best for the science and what’s best for the future of cancer research in this country,” said James DeGregori, PhD, a panel member behind the new report and professor at the University of Colorado Anschutz in Aurora.
- AACR report: 12 FDA cancer therapy approvals in 12 mo; multiple first-in-class uses.
- New approvals: dordaviprone, vepdegestrant, pembrolizumab ovarian, liso-cel MZL, Optune Pax pancreatic.
- Personalized mRNA melanoma vaccine showed durable 5-year recurrence benefit.
- AI tools expanding pathology, staging, relapse prediction, immunotherapy response; DrugCLIP screened 10,000 proteins.
- GLP-1/cancer data remain mixed; future progress depends on evidence-based federal grant review.
Novel Therapies
Among the many positive developments since last year’s report, the latest edition highlights a dozen therapies approved by the FDA between July 1, 2025, and June 30, 2026. They include numerous “firsts,” such as:
- A molecularly targeted therapy, dordaviprone, for certain rare but lethal diffuse midline gliomas affecting children and young adults
- A proteolysis-targeting chimera, vepdegestrant, which was greenlighted for patients with ESR1-mutated advanced or metastatic breast cancer
- The first immune checkpoint inhibitor (pembrolizumab), approved for patients with ovarian cancer
- Lisocabtagene maraleucel, a CAR T-cell therapy for marginal zone lymphoma
- A first-of-its-kind wearable device, Optune Pax, that uses tumor treating fields to help treat pancreatic cancer in combination with chemotherapy
Beyond approvals, researchers made noteworthy progress in developing therapeutic cancer vaccines. A 5-year follow-up study of patients with resected high-risk melanoma who received a personalized mRNA vaccine to prevent recurrence showed durable benefits. Other mRNA vaccines, meanwhile, showed early promise in small studies of patients with triple-negative breast cancer and pancreatic cancer.
AI Makes More Inroads
The report also points to recent approvals of AI-powered tools aimed at detecting and diagnosing cancer — signs that machine learning is poised to transform medicine, DeGregori said.
“In the clinic it’s already enabling pathological review,” he told Medscape Medical News. “It’s been shown to be able to characterize the tumor and do at least as good as expert pathologists in determining the stage of the tumor.”
Studies also suggest that AI may soon be used to accurately predict relapse or individual responses to immunotherapy, DeGregori said.
As a research tool, he added, AI’s ability to interpret enormous amounts of clinical data should generate “a lot of new hypotheses” around cancers’ etiology and potential weak spots.
The report spotlighted one AI model, DrugCLIP, that researchers recently used to screen about 10,000 human proteins against more than 500 million compounds — yielding more than 2 million candidate molecules for drug development.
The Buzz Around GLP-1s
GLP-1 drugs continued to be a big player in medicine over the past year, but with a new focus on their potential to help prevent certain cancers. A number of widely reported studies found associations between GLP-1 use and lower risks of developing various obesity-linked cancers or improved cancer outcomes.
But critics also pointed to limitations and flaws in the research, and at this point, the AACR says, the jury is still out.
A meta-analysis of 48 clinical trials, for example, found no evidence that GLP-1s affected the likelihood of developing obesity-related cancers. Meanwhile, some research has suggested that the medications are associated with an increased risk for certain cancers — though the limitations of observational research come into play there, too.
In sum, DeGregori said, “it’s a mixed bag,” and better data are needed to fully understand the relationship between GLP-1s and cancer.
Federal Funding at Risk?
As the report points out, the advances of the past year relied in large part on decades of federal investment in cancer research. Future progress, the AACR said, will hinge on policymakers ensuring that federal grant-making is guided by evidence, scientific merit, transparency, and accountability.
Specifically, the group calls on Congress to stop the Office of Management and Budget from implementing the Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance. The proposed rule would set new regulations fundamentally changing how federal grants are awarded and managed, and critics charge that it would hand political appointees the ability to bypass standard peer review and reject funding based on politics.
Bipartisan action by Congress blocked the rule’s implementation until December 11, 2026. The pushback, according to DeGregori, signals bipartisan support for the National Institutes of Health and other centers of excellence. But it’s only a stopgap.
If the rule goes through, he said, important research could go unfunded for various reasons unrelated to science — possibly even based on the state where the work would be conducted.
“The best science,” DeGregori said, “should be decided based on what is going to have the biggest impact for the American people in terms of over time reducing the burden of cancer.”
DeGregori had no relevant disclosures.
