Dr. Zvi Fuks, a renowned radiation oncologist, is one of the principal developers of 3-D conformal radiation therapy, a system for delivering radiation that permits precise shaping and targeting of radiotherapy beams. He has worked for many years at MSKCC (memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center).

Last month Dr. Fuks and a friend agreed to pay a total of $2.77 million to settle a lawsuit accusing them of insider trading in shares of a pharmaceutical company. The drug involved, ImClone’s Erbitux, was tested in clinical trials at MSKCC. A clinical trial of Erbitux for prostate cancer ran at MSKCC starting in 1996.
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By GARDINER HARRIS
Published: December 21, 2005
WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 - Despite promising discoveries and multibillion-dollar investments, cancer research is quietly undergoing a crisis. Federal drug regulators will soon announce several initiatives that they hope will help salvage the field.

Few drugs are being marketed, and most of those that have been introduced are enormously expensive and provide few of the benefits that patients expect. Officials of the Food and Drug Administration suggest that the failures may result from an obsolete testing system.

There is growing evidence that X-rays, long the standard, may not accurately assess a patient’s disease. The drug agency is creating collaborations to develop imaging, blood and other tests that better signal the progression of cancer.

“We need to develop cancer drugs differently,” the chief operating officer of the agency, Dr. Janet Woodcock, said in an interview. “The tools we have to develop these treatments are not what we need in cancer.”
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