Triggering cell death to kill cancer
Cancer, by definition, is an over-proliferation of cells which can be caused by many factors. One of the causes of overproliferation is because a cell in the body doesn't die on its own when it should. This process is of programmed cell death is called apoptosis, several new therapies being worked on in the biotech sector are designed to trigger death in cancer cells.
Competitors in other areas, Genentech and Amgen are working together on a Apo2L/Trail, a compound which triggers the "death receptors" on certain cancer cells. Human Genome Sciences is testing two competing drugs, HGS-ETR1 and HGS-ETR2, which do essentially the same thing. And still a fourth is being worked on at Astellas Pharma, YM155.
Once again, these drugs aren't effective in all patients, but they don't have to be. The more options, the better chance a patient will have to find a treatment that works for them:
Another very promising cell-suicide inducing drug is called YM155, which is being developed by Astellas Pharma. At ASCO, Anthony Tolcher of the Institute for Drug Development in San Antonio, presented results from an initial trial showing that it dramatically shrank tumors in five of 41 patients tested.
"This is the most provocative response rate of any cancer drug in a Phase I trial that I have seen in eight years," said Tolcher. He said the drug is now in second stage trials. Side effects included mouth sores and fever.
The hope is that using these drugs in combination with another treatment like chemotherapy will be the proverbial straw that breaks the cancer's back:
"The analogy that I am using is that maybe you can bring the tumor to the edge of a cliff with chemotherapy or [Genentech's] Avastin, and this drug will finish it off," says Roy Herbst of the MD Anderson Cancer Center, who presented early results of a preliminary safety study of Genentech and Amgen's APO2l/Trail in 37 patients.
[tags]Medicine, pharmacy, ASCO,cancer, oncology, Genentech, Amgen, Apo2L, YM155, HGS-ETR1, HGS-ETR2[/tags]
No Comments »
No comments yet.
RSS feed for comments on this post.
| TrackBack URI
You can also bookmark
this on del.icio.us or check the cosmos