[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Many promising cancer drugs in the
pipeline
04:37 p.m May 06, 1998 Eastern
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science
Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two drugs that
work together to starve out tumors in
mice may show great promise but are far
from being the only new weapons being
developed in the fight against cancer,
researchers said Wednesday.
More than 300 new therapies are currently
being tested, ranging from drugs that
directly target tumors, to vaccines that
turn the body's defenses against tumors,
to gene therapy that aims to stop cancer
at the most basic level.
The two compounds that drew such
attention this week, angiostatin and
endostatin, take an indirect route. Known
as angiogenesis inhibitors, they starve
tumors by stopping them from growing new
blood vessels to feed themselves.
Rockville, Maryland-based EntreMed is
developing the drugs, which are at least
a year away from clinical trials in
humans.
``They need to make enough of this
stuff,'' Dr. Ted Gansler of the American
Cancer Society said in a telephone
interview. ''Mice are a lot smaller than
people. It doesn't take much material to
cure a mouse.''
Several other companies are working on
the same approach. Some, smarting from
the huge publicity EntreMed has won, have
been sending out ``me too'' announcements
about their own drugs.
For instance, Pennsylvania-based Magainin
Pharmaceuticals Inc. has its compound,
squalamine, in Phase I safety trials in
human volunteers. Derived from shark
tissue, squalamine is also an inhibitor
of angiogenesis.
La Jolla, California-based Agouron has
started Phase II/III safety and efficacy
trials of its compound AG3340, another
drug that blocks blood vessel formation
and which patients could take as a pill.
Other companies include Boston Life
Sciences, whose troponin I is derived
from human cells, Techniclone Corp and
Ilex Oncology Inc., whose ``tumor homing
peptide'' is linked to the anti-cancer
drug doxorubicin in a compound called
ImTHP-dox, which the company says seeks out
and destroys developing blood vessels in
tumors.
In Britain, the Cancer Research Campaign
charity said it hoped to test
combretastatin A4 on humans in November.
In animals it has killed off up to 95
percent of solid tumor cells by starving
them of their blood supply.
A synthetic derivative of the extract of
the African bush willow, combretastatin
was developed by Bob Pettit of Arizona
State University. It is licensed to
Oxigene, a Swedish medical technology
company.
Then there are the vaccines. In Los
Angeles the John Wayne Cancer Institute
is preparing to start Phase III clinical
trials -- the last stage before seeking
Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
approval -- of a vaccine against
melanoma, the deadly form of skin cancer.
Dozens of other laboratories are looking
at gene therapy, aimed at replacing the
faulty genes that can lead to cancer.
Conventional treatment has become better,
too, with light-activated drugs that can
kill tumors without hurting healthy
surrounding tissue, targeted radiation
therapy and antibodies that carry drugs
straight to a tumor.
Survival rates have risen. In the 1930s,
according to the Pharmaceutical Research
and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA),
only one in four patients lived for five
years after being diagnosed with cancer.
Now 97 percent of women with breast
cancer that has not spread live for five
years or more, 80 percent of children
with acute lymphocytic leukemia live, and
87 percent of prostate cancer patients
survive.
The National Cancer Institute has an
Internet site that gives information
about clinical trials. It can be found at
http://cancertrials.nci.nih.gov. The
American Cancer Society also provides
information on drugs at www.cancer.org.
Best, Terry
"Lawyer - one trained to circumvent the law" - The Devil's Dictionary
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