I suspect that the ENMD price will move into the 20's today, right on schedule. Here are more reasons:
- A potential treatment for cancer that kills tumors by starving them of their blood supply is being tested on humans by doctors at the University of California here, researchers said today.
ÿÿÿÿ Meanwhile, British doctors and a Swedish-American medical company said they expect to begin human trials of another new cancer drug, Combretastatin, later this year.
ÿÿÿÿ Both drugs are alternatives to angiostatin and endostatin, other drugs which attracted worldwide interest this week after tests in the United States showed they completely wiped out tumors in mice.
ÿÿÿÿ Unlike conventional treatments that target the cancer cells themselves, all four drugs "starve" the cancer by selectively damaging blood vessels that supply the cells with the oxygen and nutrients they need to survive and grow.
Researchers Urge Caution
Two of the scientists caught up in the uproar over angiostatin and endostatin tried to damp down the frenzy on Wednesday.
ÿÿÿÿ The developer of two of the drugs, Dr. Judah Folkman, canceled a planned appearance at a prostate cancer seminar when he learned television cameras would be there.
ÿÿÿÿ And Nobel laureate Dr. James Watson made public a letter to The New York Times, whose story on Sunday sparked the frenzy, in which he denied making highly optimistic comments which the story attributed to him.
ÿÿÿÿ The Times report that the drugs had starved cancers in mice by cutting the blood supply to the tumors boosted shares in the Rockville, Md.-based company backing the drugs, EntreMed Inc.. Calls poured in to the company, to Folkman and to the National Cancer Institute.
ÿÿÿÿ Folkman, of Harvard University and Children's Hospital in Boston, said people misunderstood what role angiostatin and endostatin might play in the battle against cancer.
ÿÿÿÿ "However they will be used, they will be added to chemotherapy and radiotherapy and gene therapy and immunotherapy and vaccine therapy," Folkman was quoted as saying by the Boston Globe. He has stressed that the drugs had worked only in mice. "It's got a ways to go in people, but there is hope to get there," he said.
In Trials Since September
The drug being tested at the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, has been in Phase I trials on 30 patients since September.
ÿÿÿÿ Called SU5416, the drug developed by Redwood City, Calif.-based Sugen Inc., is an angiogenesis inhibitor, which like other recently publicized treatments, completely wiped out tumors in mice, researchers said.
ÿÿÿÿ Oxigene, a Swedish medical technology company that last year moved its headquarters to Boston, said it would start clinical tests of the other drug, Combretastatin, in September.
ÿÿÿÿ Combretastatin is a manmade 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.
ÿÿÿÿ Phase 1 trials of Combretastatin will be held at Mount Vernon Hospital in Middlesex, England; the University of Pennsylvania Cancer Center; and the University Hospital of Cleveland, Ireland Cancer Center.
Phase I First Step
Phase I trials are aimed at determining dosage, side effects and a schedule for treatment. Subsequent Phase II and Phase III trials study how effective the drug is at treating cancer.
ÿÿÿÿ The competing angiogenesis inhibitor drugs from EntreMed, angiostatin and endostatin, are at least a year away from being tested on humans.
ÿÿÿÿ But doctors at UCLA are already encouraged by early trials of SU5416 on humans.
ÿÿÿÿ "We are very excited about this experimental treatment," UCLA's Dr. Lee Rosen said today. "In the lab, SU5416 made all kinds of tumors shrink or die, no matter where in the body they were. We're hoping for exactly the same results in humans."
ÿÿÿÿ The drugs are among more than 300 new treatments for cancer being tested, ranging from those 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.
ÿÿÿÿ Since cancer cells divide much faster than other cells in the body, they need more nourishment from blood to stay alive. Blocking that blood supply kills the tumor.
ÿÿÿÿ The process of growing arteries is called angiogenesis, so the drugs are known as angiogenesis inhibitors.
ÿÿÿÿ "This drug made tumors disappear in mice, and we're very hopeful, but it's very far away from being the miracle cure for human cancers," Rosen said of SU5416.
ÿÿÿÿ Rosen said the New York Times article published Sunday about EntreMed's angiogenesis inhibitors unfairly painted those drugs as a miracle cure.
ÿÿÿÿ "The fact that (angiostatin and endostatin) were reported as a miracle cure and we're going to cure cancer in the next couple of years was a tremendous overstatement," Rosen said. "It did a terrible disservice to patients and their families."
Encouraged Nonetheless
"I'm very encouraged. We are beginning to see things that are clinically meaningful but we're not curing cancer right and left yet," Rosen said of the Phase I trial, adding that side effects so far were minimal.
ÿÿÿÿ At this early stage, however, Rosen cautioned that the drug may not be as effective as early trials suggest-like many other cancer treatments that have failed to prove effective.
ÿÿÿÿ Rosen said patients should be wary of studies that talk of curing cancer in mice, which are much easier to treat than humans.
ÿÿÿÿ "Mice have shorter lives, so you can see results very quickly," he said. "You start with mice because it's better to kill mice than humans." |
