The Vall d'Hebron publication presents the challenges and opportunities for the development of new drugs for the treatment of cancer in children, highlighting the need to study new therapies that take into account the characteristics of this type of cancer in children. The report https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33277309/" Opportunities and Challenges in Drug Development for Pediatric Cancers, produced by the Pediatric Oncology and Hematology Service of the Vall d'Hebron University Hospital in collaboration with four North American centers, has been published in the journal https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33277309/" Cancer Discovery.There are 300 new cases of cancer in children and adolescents per year in Catalonia. More than fifty patients per year will not survive, while a majority of the survivors will suffer sequelae throughout their lives. The analysis of the treatments currently available for childhood cancer points to the need to pay more attention to the development of drugs that treat this disease by pharmaceutical companies. However, it is essential that these new therapies take into account the particularities of cancer in children, such as the low number of patients, differences in the genome and the tumor microenvironment, with the intention of finding more effective treatments with less long-term sequelae.According to Dr. Lucas Moreno, clinical director of the Vall d'Hebron Pediatric Oncohematology Service and principal investigator of the Translational Research Group on Cancer in Childhood and Adolescence of the Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR), "at present only short-term sequelae are analyzed ". First of all, because they are more similar to those produced by medicines for adult cancers. Also, "because long-term sequelae occur many years later and we only detect them long after starting to use a drug". Although, he adds that "you do not have to wait twenty years before generalizing the use of a drug that works well to see all of its effects, but rather it is about being more aware of patients when they get older".The fewer cases of childhood cancer compared to adult cancer is precisely one of the reasons why drug development is progressing so slowly. As Dr. Moreno points out, "the fact that the disease is so rare means that pharmaceutical companies are less incentivized to develop drugs". In addition, there is a generalized social perception and in the pharmaceutical industry that doing clinical trials in children is dangerous, "but we must not forget that it is more dangerous to leave them without new drugs", adds the doctor.Great advances such as CAR-T for leukemias, anti-GD2 antibodies for neuroblastomas or the new TRK inhibitor drugs encourage the continuation of this path that seeks to incorporate molecular therapies and immunotherapies in childhood cancer.Thanks to all the regulatory changes that have been made recently, a wide range of drugs are currently being investigated and promising studies are underway in this area, but the report cautions that we should be able to advance research and accelerate the development of drugs. "These drugs are changing the current situation of childhood cancer and represent impressive improvements in several types of cancer."Articles such as the report Opportunities and Challenges in Drug Development for Pediatric Cancers highlight the current situation of existing therapies, "and allow the awareness of the entire research community, as well as pharmaceutical companies and regulatory agencies", concludes Dr. Moreno.