Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) publishes preclinical and clinical research on Tumor Treating Fields in 2007.

After completing several years of preclinical and clinical research on Tumor Treating Fields, Novocure believed it needed to begin building a strong foundation within the scientific community to translate Tumor Treating Fields research into an approved and accepted therapy.

To the outside world, research on using alternating electric fields at specific frequencies to treat cancer was completely new. Novocure believed it had made great strides with its research internally and in its first clinical trials. To bring a new modality to market, the company would need external validation and acceptance.

In 2007, those initial years of persistence and diligence in the lab and in the clinic paid off. Novocure’s clinical research was published for the first time in a top-tier, peer-reviewed scientific journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The publication included preclinical results of Tumor Treating Fields research in cell culture and animal models, as well as data from EF-07, the phase 2 pilot trial of Tumor Treating Fields in recurrent GBM. The published results were the first evidence of the safety and efficacy of Tumor Treating Fields used to treat cancer patients. Prior to the publication in PNAS, Cancer Research published Novocure’s earliest preclinical data in 2004.

“Before the Cancer Research and PNAS publications, there was limited knowledge available to the world or scientific community regarding the effects of alternating electric fields at these ranges and these intensities on biological systems,” said Dr. Uri Weinberg, Novocure’s Chief Science Officer. “Without such publications, we would not have had the ability to step forward to build a company, to build more advanced science, to take the basis of the science itself and translate it, develop it into a therapy—into something that works on humans.”