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Biotech / Medical : EntreMed (ENMD) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Bloxom who wrote (812)	5/6/1998 7:09:00 PM
From: Secret_Agent_Man	Respond to of 2135

Wednesday May 6, 11:52 am Eastern Time UK to test new cancer drug on humans in six months By Patricia Reaney LONDON, May 6 (Reuters) -British doctors said on Wednesday they expect to begin human trials of a new cancer drug that cuts off blood supply to tumours 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 tumours in mice. Combretastatin is a man-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 (OXGN - news; OXGN.ST), a Swedish medical technology company. News of the U.S. trials of angiostatin and endostatin has sent shares soaring in EntreMed Inc (ENMD - news), 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 tumour, 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 tumour cells by starving them of their blood supply. ''As more than 90 percent of cancers are solid tumours, 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 tumour cells and I'm sure there is going to be a lot more research which will prove you can do that,'' he said.