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Biotech / Medical : Ligand (LGND) Breakout! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mudcat who wrote (16236)	3/2/1998 7:04:00 PM
From: dwight martin	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 32384

Thread, FYI: The gp100 is the underpinning to the ABC story (I think). Press Release for Nature Medicine : March 1998 Embargoed for release: 17.00 EST, Monday, March 2nd 1998 Please quote Nature Medicine as the source of this item. New vaccines to treat melanoma ------------------------------ Two papers in the March issue of Nature Medicine describe new vaccines with the potential to treat the deadly skin cancer, melanoma. Both vaccines use specific markers or antigens that are present on a patient's tumor cells to stimulate a strong cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) immune response, which selectively destroys the cancer cells. By modifying the melanoma antigen, gp100, a team from the US National Cancer Institute at the NIH, led by Steven Rosenberg, increased the antigen's ability to attract CTLs to tumor sites. When the modified antigen vaccine was administered to melanoma patients in conjunction with the cytokine, IL-2, 42% of patients showed tumor shrinkage. This is compared with shrinkage in only 17% of patients that received IL-2 alone. In a different approach, Dirk Schadendorf's group at the University of Heidelberg, produced "dendritic vaccines." Dendritic cells are particularly effective at presenting antigens to CTLs. Schadendorf's team took dendritic cells from melanoma patients and loaded them with a cocktail of antigens from the patient's own cancerous cells. These dendritic vaccines were then injected directly into patient's lymph nodes. Tumor regression was seen in 31% of cases, two of which had complete tumor regression that has lasted for over a year. Large scale clinical trials are now required to evaluate the efficacy of both types of vaccine. In addition, many other tumors, such as prostate, breast and ovary cancer, express unique proteins, which means that these cancers are also suitable targets for this type of vaccine. In an accompanying News & Views article, Ron Levy of Stanford University points out that these novel vaccines have "raised more questions than they have answered" and comments on the future of melanoma vaccine therapy. Dr. Steven A. Rosenberg Surgery Branch, Division of Clinical Sciences National Cancer Institute, NIH Building 10, Room 2B42 10 Center Drive, MSC 1502 Bethesda, MD 20892-1502 tel: 301 496 4164 fax: 301 402 1738 Dr. Dirk Schadendorf Klinische Kooperationseinheit fur Dermatoonkologie Fakultat fur Klinishe Medizin Mannheim der Universitat Heidelberg Theodor Kutzer Ufer I 68135 Mannheim Germany tel: 011 49 621 383 2126 fax: 011 49 621 383 2163 Dr. Ron Levy Division of Oncology M211 Stanford University School of Medicine Stanford CA 94305-5306 Tel: 650-725-6452 Fax: 650-725-1420 Far out.

To: Mudcat who wrote (16236)	3/2/1998 8:30:00 PM
From: Proton	Respond to of 32384

Re: NBC Nightly News on "War on Cancer" NBC talked about breast cancer and Genetech was mentioned. They are suppose to get FDA approval at the end of the year the report stated. Before the report, Brokaw briefly mentioned that there were good clinical results on a compound that enhances the effect of vaccine for melanoma. He then proceeded to the report on Genentech's Herceptin. Sounded as if they were going to "seek permission to market the drug" (NDA?) in the fall. Non-Brokaw info: Herceptin (humanized anti-HER2 monoclonal antibody, a.k.a. HER2 hMAb) went into Phase III in June, 1995. Pý