advancing our
clinical pipeline

Before joining Novocure in 2012, Ori Farber had recently completed his medical studies and was working in the emergency department of a hospital considering the next steps of his career. He wanted to do something completely different with his training. Instead of selecting a residency, he chose to work at Novocure.

“I was looking for something that would still be connected to medicine and patient care,” Ori said. “I wanted to make an impact on patients’ lives. And then I found Novocure.”

The company’s cancer treatment also combined two of his interests: medicine and bioengineering.

Ori, a Senior Medical Manager on Novocure’s Clinical Operations Team, works on all Novocure-sponsored clinical trials. He takes part in the development, preparation and execution of clinical trials. He provides medical input to his Novocure colleagues, contract research organizations and investigators throughout the clinical trials.

Ori said there is lot of work done behind the scenes in order to conduct clinical trials.

“There are many parts, details and people involved,” he said. “It’s like an orchestra. It’s a huge effort in the planning, creation and execution of the study.”

Ori said the Clinical Operations Team contributed to some of Novocure’s major accomplishments in 2017. Those accomplishments include the publication of the final EF-14 phase 3 pivotal trial data in GBM in JAMA, enrolling the first patient in the phase 3 pivotal trial in non-small cell lung cancer, and completing the preparations for opening the phase 3 pivotal trial in unresectable locally advanced pancreatic cancer.

When looking toward the future, he is most excited about Novocure’s evolving pipeline and the potential to help more cancer patients.

“Lung cancer is a good example,” Ori said. “There are so many people affected by this disease and there is so much room for improvement in the outcome and prognosis of these patients. There is a great potential to have an effect on a large patient population.”

Although Ori and the Clinical Operations Team do not treat patients, patients are always at the forefront of the work they do. Reflecting on his decision to join Novocure versus begin a residency in medicine, Ori feels he made the right choice and that he may have the opportunity to impact a larger number of patients in his role at Novocure than he would as a clinician.

“This company exists for patients,” he said. “They are always on our mind.”

Professor Ignace Vergote has dedicated his 32-year career to investigating treatment options and striving to improve survival in gynecologic cancers. Among gynecologic cancers, ovarian cancer is the deadliest, representing the fifth most common cause of cancer death among women in the United States. Five-year survival in ovarian cancer has slowly increased from 34 percent in 1975 to 47 percent today.

“We are making progress little by little, step by step,” said Professor Vergote, Chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Gynaecologic Oncology at the Catholic University of Leuven, European Union.

Although more women are living longer with ovarian cancer today than several decades ago, 70 percent of patients will have a recurrence and most will eventually die from the disease.

“As an oncologist, you mean a lot to patients,” he said. “Many times, you can’t cure them, but you can give them a longer life with acceptable quality of life.”

To date, Professor Vergote has authored more than 800 papers in gynecologic cancer research and his work was cited more than 40,000 times. He conducts 20 clinical trials in ovarian cancer per year and was an investigator in Novocure’s phase 2 pilot study in recurrent ovarian cancer, INNOVATE.

“There are few possibilities to treat these patients,” he said. “We must continue to investigate treatment options that may potentially improve survival in this difficult to treat disease.”

Professor Vergote became interested in Tumor Treating Fields as a potential treatment for ovarian cancer after seeing the data of Novocure’s EF-14 phase 3 pivotal trial in newly diagnosed glioblastoma and learning about the treatment’s side effect profile. In Novocure’s clinical research and commercial experience to date, Tumor Treating Fields has exhibited no known systemic toxicity, with mild to moderate skin irritation being the most common side effect.

Novocure’s INNOVATE trial examined Tumor Treating Fields in combination with standard of care chemotherapy in patients with recurrent platinum-resistant ovarian cancer. The data suggested that Tumor Treating Fields in combination with weekly paclitaxel is tolerable and safe. The data also suggested more than doubling of the progression free survival and an improvement in overall survival among patients who received Tumor Treating Fields with paclitaxel compared with historical controls.

Based on these results, Novocure plans to start a phase 3 trial in recurrent ovarian cancer in 2018. Professor Vergote said he plans to participate.

“I’ve always been very interested in innovation and trying to find new treatment modalities to help our patients,” he said. “I’ve always done that from the start of my career.”