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Biotech / Medical : Indications -- Cancer -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Miljenko Zuanic who wrote (73)	6/13/2001 10:52:09 AM
From: keokalani'nui	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1840

Have no idea at the moment if sphingosine kinase inhibition is a good target or not. Hope I'm not posting someone else's hype. STAMFORD, Conn.--(BW HealthWire)--June 13, 2001--Researchers last evening presented preliminary evidence that Novogen's (Nasdaq:NVGN - news) investigational anti-cancer drug, phenoxodiol, inhibits an enzyme that has been shown to promote many solid cancers. Inhibition of the enzyme, sphingosine kinase, blocks many of the activities of the cancer cell including its ability to survive and proliferate. The presentation was made by Mathew Vadas, Division of Human Immunology Hanson Centre for Cancer Research, Adelaide, Australia, who presented data at a conference for the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology in Tucson, Arizona. Over-expression of sphingosine kinase by cancer cells is now thought to be an important reason why human cancer cells stop dying naturally and accumulate in the body. In addition, solid tumors are dependent on the growth of new blood vessels in order to ``feed'' the growing tumor mass. Sphingosine kinase is also believed to be involved in blood vessel expansion. Developing drugs to knock out sphingosine kinase has become an important new direction within the pharmaceutical industry in the race to develop drugs that have broad anti-cancer action but limited adverse effects on healthy cells. The Australia-based group, led by Professors Mathew Vadas and Jennifer Gamble achieved prominence by defining the role of sphingosine kinase in inflammation and cancer and by cloning the first human sphingosine kinase gene, a crucial step in helping to develop drugs that target this important enzyme. Professor Vadas said, ``The experimental anti-cancer drug, phenoxodiol, has proven to be a potent inhibitor of sphingosine kinase. The importance of this is that we now have a new means of inhibiting this enzyme, which we believe is a major contributor to the cancer process in humans. ``We are not sure yet whether just inhibition of sphingosine kinase alone will be enough to stop cancer growth, but the early evidence suggests that it would make a significant contribution,'' said Professor Vadas. Professor Gamble added that ``Phenoxodiol is a very interesting anti-cancer agent, because it is already thought to possesses a number of other anti-cancer effects such as its ability to stop cancer cells dividing through an inhibition of the topoisomerase 2 enzyme, and an ability to inhibit signal transduction mechanisms mediated by protein tyrosine kinase enzymes. ``To be able to add inhibition of sphingosine kinase to this list means that phenoxodiol appears to be active against multiple targets in cancer cells, and that considerably increases the likelihood of having an anti-cancer effect,'' Professor Gamble added. Phenoxodiol is an experimental anti-cancer drug being developed by Australian pharmaceutical company, Novogen Limited. The drug currently is in Phase Ib/IIa clinical trials in Australia and will begin a Phase Ib trial at the Taussig Cancer Center at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in patients with solid tumors within 30 days.