Cancer Therapy Center

NeoPharm Inc announced a restructuring of its workforce following a late failure of its brain cancer drug earlier this month. The drug, cintredekin besudotox, was slated to be the company’s first commercial product. The restructuring, which will result in 14 employees being dismissed, will save the company about $1.5M over the course of 2007.

The trial data showed that patients receiving cintredekin besudotox had roughly the same survival rate as patients receiving MGI Pharma’s Glidel Wafer treatment, the current industry standard. This resulted in the company suspending future trials, leading to a 73% drop in stock price since.

The company is currently working on liposome-based drugs to treat breast cancer, colorectal cancer, and other advanced tumors.

Reuters notes that Abraxis (maker of Abraxane) published interim data showing tumors were more responsive to Abraxane and patients showed fewer side effects than with competing drug Taxotere.

Interim analysis of the 300-patient Phase II trial showed that 61 percent to 72 percent of patients treated weekly with a low dose and high dose, respectively, of Abraxane responded to the drug, compared with 36 percent given Taxotere every three weeks, the company said.

A dose of Abraxane give once every three weeks resulted in a response rate of just 33 percent.

A Phase III trial is scheduled for the first half of 2007. Both drugs are forms of pacilataxel, developed with the goal of interfering with cancer cell growth.

Medpage has an article noting that breast cancer clinicians seem to be fine tuning their art, with a major decline in morality when using radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and Tamoxifen, an analysis of clinical trial evidence has shown.

The five-year update by the Early Breast Cancer Trialists’ Collaborative Group (EBCTCG), presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium here by epidemiologist Richard Peto, Ph.D., of the University of Oxford in England, held no surprises but confirmed that radiotherapy, chemotherapy combinations, and tamoxifen were steadily reducing disease mortality. 

 

Overall, said Dr. Peto, breast cancer mortality rates have been dropping worldwide since the late 1980s, likely because of effective treatments, early diagnosis by mammography, better adjuvant treatment, and better treatment for relapse.

While each individual treatment has only moderate success against breast cancer, the treatments combine to be increasingly effective.

CBS News has a story noting that RU-486’s progesterone-blocking ability helps prevent breast cancer in mice carrying a dangerous “cancer gene”, a new study shows. While RU-486 is not safe for long-term use, other progesterone-blocking drugs are on the way to treat women carrying the BRCA1 gene mutation, says UCI Professor Eva Y.H.P. Lee.

“To prevent cancer, many women who are BRCA1 carriers have very traumatic surgery — their ovaries and both breasts are removed,” Lee tells WebMD.

“Many of these women have asked us about clinical use of RU-486, but it would have too many side effects for prevention use,” she says. “However, I am happy to say that for the past three years there have been companies working on more appropriate anti-progesterone drugs.”

Lee and colleagues report their findings in the Dec. 1 issue of Science.