The highly successful series of Amsterdam-based TAT meetings on new anticancer drugs has been extended by another event, the 5th International Symposium on Targeted Anticancer Therapies in March 2007 (TAT 2007). This symposium provided the latest results from a range of clinical and preclinical studies of targeted anticancer agents, which remain the focus of ongoing clinical trials and laboratory studies around the globe. Several targeted agents have been approved for use in cancer therapy in the past years. Others are awaiting regulatory approval and many more are being evaluated in laboratory studies and clinical trials, justifying an annual frequency of meetings addressing various important issues in the development of targeted anticancer agents.

TAT 2007 brought well over 600 delegates from about 40 countries to Amsterdam for an intensive 3-day program, completely composed of plenary sessions. Among the drugs discussed in Amsterdam were bevacizumb, cetuximab, dasatinib erlotinib, lapatinib, nilotinib, oblimersen sodium, sorafenib, and sunitinib, which have been approved or are awaiting regulatory approval in various cancer indications. The TAT 2007 program incorporated presentations of clinical trials results that had not been presented elsewhere before, illustrating the increasing recognition among investigators and sponsors of the value of releasing and discussing original data at a relatively small-scale meeting like this.

One of the traditional highlights of the TAT meetings is the awarding ceremony of the NDDO Honorary Award. This year, the award was presented to Professor Jaap Verweij, Erasmus University Medical Center MC, Rotterdam, in recognition of his dedication – throughout his career - to the development of new anticancer therapies and his contribution in various functions to the realization of the aims of the NDDO organization.

The TAT 2007 underlined the notion that targeted anticancer agents already on the market are just the tip of the iceberg. One of the big challenges to the medical oncology community worldwide is to take a seemingly endless stream of new drug candidates through proper clinical evaluation to identify the ones that will make a difference in the end. To improve the efficiency of this difficult drug development process, the NDDO Research Foundation has established a special task force on “Methodology for the Development of Innovative Cancer Therapies” (MDICT). This task force of international drug development experts had its second meeting in conjunction with TAT 2007, and addressed several issues in the design and conduct of phase 1 and 2 studies. A verbal report of this MDICT meeting was presented in the TAT session on methodological and regulatory issues in drug development (slides accessible via menu item ”MDICT Task Force”). Two papers resulting from the first MDICT meetings in 2006 and 2007 have recently been submitted for publication.

During TAT 2007, it was announced that the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) will join the NDDO Research Foundation as the second partner organization, next to ESMO, in the organization of future TAT meetings. In the new setting, the meeting venue will alternate between Europe (Amsterdam) and the United States. The TAT 2008 conference will, therefore, be held in Bethesda, MD, March 20-22, 2008.