Steve Wright <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Doctors warn against euphoria on cancer drugs
By Maggie Fox
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Doctors said Monday they were excited about a new way
to attack cancer but warned against premature euphoria over drugs that may
not work in people.
The two drugs, angiostatin and endostatin, have completely wiped out tumors
in mice.
A feature story about the work published in the New York Times Sunday sent
stock in EntreMed Inc., which has rights to the drugs, soaring. Shares in
Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., which has an agreement with EntreMed, also shot
up.
"The data are very impressive and compelling. But it is still mouse data. We
need clinical data in humans before we can anoint them as miracle drugs,"
said Dr. Jim Pluda, an oncologist at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) who
is overseeing research in this area.
"There have been a number of compounds in the past that have cured mice and
did not translate into efficacy in human clinical trials. The field of
oncology is littered with the bodies of agents that were the next cure for
cancer."
EntreMed Chief Financial Officer Nelson Campbell agreed, and declined to use
the word "cure." "We're in preclinical studies and the proteins are not in
humans yet. We do not use the 'c-word'," he said.
He said it would be at least a year before the drug combination was tested
in humans.
Nonetheless the NCI has made their development a top priority. The drugs
work to stop the growth of blood vessels that tumors need to grow and
flourish. This process of growing arteries is called angiogenesis, so the
drugs are known as angiogenesis inhibitors, or anti-angiogenesis drugs.
Pluda compared the approach to trying to eliminate dandelions from a lawn.
"Normally we keep whacking off the top and the dandelion keeps growing
back," he said in a telephone interview. "But if you kill the roots of the
dandelion, the whole plant dies. We are killing the mechanism by which the
tumor cells get nutrition."
There are few side-effects, unlike the standard treatments that use toxic
drugs or X-rays.
The drugs are naturally occurring agents. "Angiostatin is actually a portion
of a normal circulating blood product called plasminogen. Endostatin is a
small fragment of a type of collagen called collagen 18 that is normally
found in the body but localized around blood vessel cells," Pluda said.
The two-drug approach was first reported in the science journal Nature in
November 1997. It was developed by Dr. Judah Folkman, of Children's Hospital
and Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts.
But even Folkman remains cautious.
"If you have cancer and you are a mouse, we can take care of you," he told
the New York Times. And he said it could be years before the drugs are ready
to be tested in humans.
The drugs may not be suitable for use in children or pregnant women.
Angiogenesis is very important for the growth of unborn babies and children.
"That is an issue," Pluda said.
Stocks in Rockville, Maryland-based EntreMed more than quadrupled in value
on Monday. In early afternoon trading the stock the stock was up around 46
15/16 at 59 compared with Friday's close at 12 1/16.
EntreMed is working with Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. to develop angiostatin.
Options on Bristol-Myers also were active as the stock rallied to a new
record high, but prices later settled back to around 110 at midday.
Campbell said the extraordinary rise was due to the market catching up on
news about the drugs.
"This is valid recognition of some outstanding data," Campbell said in a
telephone interview. "But this is not necessarily new data, so it's the
market playing catch-up."
Campbell said EntreMed is in talks with "several other major pharmaceutical
companies" for a deal to develop endostatin.
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Lifes a beach and I'm on it, Jah Wobble.
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