Survival for advanced NSCLC has improved dramatically with the advent of molecular targeted therapies such as erlotinib and crizotinib for the treatment of patients whose tumours harbour specific sensitising mutations in the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and translocations in the anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) [2,3]. The gene discussed is ALK; the disease is non-small cell lung carcinoma.