"Ronald Helm" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
UK to test new cancer drug on humans
By Patricia Reaney
LONDON (Reuters) - British doctors said Wednesday they expect to begin
human trials of a new cancer drug that cuts off blood supply to tumors
ahead of U.S. counterparts who are working on a similar approach.
Dr David Secher, director of drug development for the Cancer Research
Campaign, said the charity hopes to test Combretastatin A4 on humans in
November.
"Our animal studies have been sufficiently encouraging for us to go into
clinical studies. I think it is a very interesting area," Secher told
Reuters.
Unlike conventional treatments that target the cancer cells themselves,
Combretastatin works by selectively damaging blood vessels that supply
the cells with the oxygen and nutrients they need to survive and grow.
It "starves" the cancer in a similar way to angiostatin and endostatin,
two drugs which attracted worldwide interest this week after tests in
the United States showed they completely wiped out tumors in mice.
Combretastatin is a mad-made derivative of the extract of the African
Bush Willow. It was discovered by Professor Bob Pettit, of Arizona State
University, which has licensed it to Oxigene, a Swedish medical
technology company.
News of the U.S. trials of angiostatin and endostatin has sent shares
soaring in EntreMed Inc, which has rights to those drugs, despite
warnings that they might not produce the same results in humans.
EntreMed said it would be at least a year before the drug combination
could be tested on humans.
The British researchers plan to begin Phase 1 trials for safety and to
set the correct dose of Combretastatin in November at the Mount Vernon
Hospital in Middlesex, southern England.
Dr Dai Chaplin, who will conduct these trials, said the way
Combretastatin damages the endothelial cells, which line the blood
vessels in the tumor, may be quite different from the U.S. drug
combination, but the end result is basically the same.
Chaplin found in animal trials a single dose of Combretastatin could
kill off up to 95 percent of solid tumor cells by starving them of their
blood supply.
"As more than 90 percent of cancers are solid tumors, or lumps, we are
very excited about its potential as a powerful new weapon to treat
cancer patients. It also opens the door for further development of other
drugs working on the same principle," Chaplin added.
The two-drug U.S. approach of starving cancerous cells was pioneered by
Dr Judah Folkman of Boston Children's Hospital in Massachusetts.
"It's a very exciting way to go. It's too early to know whether it is
the right way to go but it is one of a number of new and exciting
approaches," said Secher.
Chaplin described the latest drugs as a whole new battlefield against
cancer.
"Our data and the data coming from Judah's lab in the U.S. is showing
that these approaches can work. You're really targeting the blood
vessels rather than the tumor cells and I'm sure there is going to be a
lot more research which will prove you can do that," he said.
To succeed in politics, it is often necessary to rise above your
principles.
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