Bad News For ENMD on the wire this AM....
Lots of competition to produce similar angiogenesis inhibitors drugs (SUGN, AEL, CELG, BAY, BBG, AGPH & BMY) - including 4 other angiogenesis inhibitors drugs Bristol-Myers is developing...
Gee no wonder they dropped ENMD - ENMD was obviously the worst of the 5 angiogenesis inhibitors drugs they are developing...
"Bristol-Myers says it has four other angiogenesis inhibitors in experimental testing."
dljdirect.com
******************************************
ANALYSIS-Companies put faith in tumor-starving drugs
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Bristol-Myers Squibb BMY.N
may have backed off an agreement to produce one headline-making
cancer drug, but companies are still putting their faith -- and
their dollars -- into drugs that literally starve tumors.
Called angiogenesis inhibitors, the drugs stop tumors from
building blood vessels to feed themselves. They made headlines
last year after newspaper reports played up laboratory
experiments in which the drugs seemed to cure mice of cancer.
Bristol-Myers said on Wednesday the compound it was working
on with tiny biotechnology company EntreMed ENMD.O was too
hard to make. The compound, angiostatin, is based on a natural
human protein that stops the production of blood vessels.
Stock in Rockville, Maryland-based EntreMed plunged on the
news, cut virtually in half from about $24 a share to just
under $13 on Wednesday.
Yet on Thursday it rocketed back up again to $25 after
EntreMed President and Chief Executive Officer John Holaday
said in several published interviews that his company was going
ahead with plans to get human trials of angiostatin up and
running this year.
Holaday also reminded investors that a related compound the
company is developing, called endostatin, showed even more
promise in mice. EntreMed is working with the National Cancer
Institute (NCI) to develop endostatin, a compound that, like
angiostatin, stops new blood vessels from forming.
"People have confused angiostatin and endostatin," Holaday
said in a telephone interview. "We are right on line with what
was promised."
Wall Street was also excited by reminders that the NCI has
been able to synthesize the protein upon which endostatin is
based, and by a report in January's issue of the journal Cancer
Research by Vikas Sukhatme and colleagues at Boston's Beth
Deaconess Hospital, in which Sukhatme said they had managed to
make mouse endostatin for experimental tests.
Last week, the NCI sent out a call to hospitals and clinics
to find possible locations for the first clinical trials --
trials involving people instead of animals -- on endostatin.
EntreMed and several other companies have strong faith in
the drugs and are racing to bring them to market. Although they
take a number of different approaches, all the drugs have one
goal -- choking off tumors.
This is a radically different aim from current cancer
treatment, which concentrates on killing the cancer cells.
"If you look at traditional chemotherapy like a bomb, and
you go in and kill everything and hope the good stuff comes
back and the bad stuff dies, this is a different approach,"
said Dr. Lee Rosen of the University of California at Los
Angeles, who is testing several drugs made by Sugen Inc.
SUGN.O, based in South San Francisco.
Sugen is about to begin Phase III clinical trials -- the
final trials before Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval
-- of SU5416, its experimental angiogenesis inhibitor.
"It's a very important advance in the treatment of
cancers," Rosen said in a telephone interview. But he points
out that while it is very easy to cure cancer in laboratory
mice, doing so in human beings is much harder.
"Before we go and say it's the next cure for cancer or it's
going to replace traditional means of treating, we've got a lot
of testing to do," Rosen said.
Unlike angiostatin and endostatin, which are based on
proteins naturally produced by the body, SU5416 is a synthetic
drug. It literally blocks the receptors, or doorways, on blood
vessel cells so that proteins cannot attach and start the
process of building new blood vessels.
One of the problems with angiostatin and endostatin has
been producing enough of the proteins, of reliable quality, to
test in humans. Holaday hopes he has the problem licked with
yeast genetically engineered to produce the human protein. But
Bristol-Myers was doubtful enough about the technique to back
away.
With drugs like SU5416 such problems do not come up,
although other problems may arise.
Similarly, Sainte-Foy, Quebec-based AEterna AEL.TO is
about to start Phase III trials, under NCI auspices, of its
drug neovastat. Because it is extracted from shark cartilage,
the company is confident of a reliable supply.
"We are using one of the most abundant shark species,"
Jean-Yves Bourgeois, chief financial officer of AEterna, said
in a telephone interview. "Reproducibility has never been a
problem."
AEterna's drug is based on the premise that cartilage does
not contain blood vessels, and in fact actively produces
compounds to keep them from forming.
"The 'skeleton' of a shark is all cartilage," Dr. Eric
Dupont, president and chief executive officer of the company,
said. "It's a convenient source."
Like Sugen, AEterna does not say its drug might replace the
current harsh regimen of chemotherapy and radiotherapy for
cancer patients. Instead, the drugs might be used to keep the
cancer from coming back and spreading, Dupont said.
"If you can avoid the evolution of a primary tumor -- it
doesn't matter which one, whether it is prostate, breast or
lung -- it has been clearly demonstrated that it improves life
expectancy in animals," he said.
Other companies are also testing drugs. Warren, New
Jersey-based Celgene Corp. CELG.O has licensed rights to
thalidomide from EntreMed and is testing it against cancer.
Thalidomide is a potent angiogenesis inhibitor, which is
why doctors say it caused such severe birth defects in children
born to pregnant women who used it in the 1950s and 1960s.
Bayer BAYG.F, British Biotech BBG.L and Agouron
Pharmaceuticals AGPH.O also have angiogenesis inhibitors in
Phase III clinical trials. Bristol-Myers says it has four other
angiogenesis inhibitors in experimental testing.
|
