[Interview] Asia taking bigger role in cancer research ahead of ASCO Brea...

Asia is taking a bigger role in cancer research, not just following work led by North America and Europe, according to Park Joon-oh, chair of the Korean Society of Medical Oncology, ahead of this year’s American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Breakthrough meeting in Singapore.

Park, who also sits on the Program Committee for 2026 ASCO Breakthrough, said the meeting is more than a regional extension of ASCO’s annual conference in Chicago.

Park Joon-oh, chair of the Korean Society of Medical Oncology (KSMO), during an interview with Korea Biomedical Review in December 2025. (Credit: KSMO)

“ASCO Breakthrough is not a smaller version of the ASCO Annual Meeting,” he told Korea Biomedical Review, describing it instead as a forum that connects new cancer research to the realities of Asia-Pacific patients, healthcare systems, and access to treatment.

2026 ASCO Breakthrough will be held from June 25 to 27 at the Raffles City Convention Centre in Singapore, with online participation also available. The meeting will cover a broad range of rapidly evolving oncology topics including precision medicine, AI, new drug development, clinical trials, and next generation treatment strategies.

Park’s latest comments were broader than in our December interview, when he focused more on Korean participation and the meeting’s value as a visible platform for Korean-led studies.

He also said, “Timing is important: the goal is to present at the earliest major international congress after results are ready,” calling ASCO Breakthrough “a meaningful platform for Korean-led research.”

This time, with registrations for the meeting and evaluation of abstracts still ongoing, Park spoke more generally about Asia’s place in global oncology, and the role Korean researchers could play in that shift.

He said Korean researchers now need to move beyond simply presenting local work overseas.

“We have moved beyond the stage of introducing Korea’s research capabilities on the international stage. Now is the time to expand clinical questions that emerge in Asia into global research,” he said.

Park, a hematology-oncology professor at Samsung Medical Center who leads Samsung’s Precision Medicine Research Center, said Korea’s strengths in cancer research still rest on four things: experienced clinicians, strong treatment infrastructure, fast trial execution, and the ability to generate high-quality data.

He said the concentration of cancer care in major centers, combined with electronic medical records that can pull together pathology, imaging, and genomic data, has helped Korea build a stronger research base than a simple high-enrollment trial market.

He also pointed to several trends gathering pace in Korean oncology.

One is wider use of next-generation sequencing to match patients with targeted drugs or clinical trials, though he said broader reimbursement and better access remain important if precision medicine is to spread more widely in routine care.

Another is the rise of newer drug classes, including immunotherapies, antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), bispecific antibodies, cell therapies, and next-generation targeted medicines.

Park said efforts to target KRAS mutations, once widely seen as out of reach, were opening up new possibilities for hard-to-treat cancers such as pancreatic, colorectal, and lung cancer.

AI and digital health are also becoming a bigger part of cancer research, he said, as more groups try to combine imaging, pathology, genomic, and clinical data to predict treatment response and support clinical decisions.

But he said the next challenge is to show that these tools improve real-world outcomes, not just produce promising technical results.

Park said Asia’s growing influence in oncology is not just about scale.

He pointed to cancers seen more often in the region, including stomach, liver, biliary tract, and nasopharyngeal cancers, as well as EGFR-mutant lung cancer, as areas where Asian researchers can generate evidence with wider global relevance.

Park also said the meeting offers practical value, especially for younger researchers, by giving them a chance to present work internationally, meet collaborators and build relationships that can lead to future studies and multinational projects.

He said repeated strong presentations can also help hospitals and universities build credibility with academic and industry partners abroad.

“Korea is no longer on the periphery of global oncology research, but is moving closer to the center,” Park said, urging Korean researchers to use the Singapore meeting not just to hear the latest data, but to connect their work more directly with the wider global cancer community.

Register for the meeting

here.

In-person and online registration available, with early registration ending May 20, 11:59 PM (ET) and standard registration remaining open until June 12.

Kim Ji-hye