Future of Biotechnology may become the latest ally of humans in fighting its age-old enemy the cancer. A host of new drugs from the biotechnology sector are aiming to use the body's own cellular processes to halt growth of cancerous cells.
The new generation of cancer medicines will be those that target genetics and Biotech leaders are confident that biologic drugs will someday overtake standard chemotherapy treatment.
Promising Drugs related to Biotechnology:
The results of some of the new generation cancer-fighting drugs show promise.
One such experimental drug is called MDX-010, developed by Medarex, Princeton. The drug is currently undergoing late stage human trials.
MDX-10 is an antibody designed to help patients with advanced metastatic melanoma cancer to fight it with strong immune response. The trials have shows some dramatic results with six of the 29 patients recording shrinkage or disappearance of the tumor cells. These patients had received a higher dosage of the drug.
In patients with such advanced cancer, even the conventional chemotherapy works only five percent of the cases and that too for six weeks. In one patient with the cancer spreading to lung and brain, the MDX-10 treatment enabled to prolong life for 30 months. In other cases, three of the 27 patients experienced partial responses, with two of them responding to the treatment to live for 25 and 26 months.
MDX-010 is a fully human antibody against human CTLA-4, a molecule on T cells that is believed to be responsible for suppressing the immune response. Medarex focuses on the discovery and development of fully human anti-body based therapeutics to treat life-threatening and debilitating diseases, including cancer, inflammation, autoimmune disorders.
Another promising treatment is from Cell Genesys of San Franciso. Cell Genesys CEO Stephen Sherwin said the company has developed a GVAX anti-cancer vaccine which is designed to stimulate the body's immune system. In one trial, cancer patients receiving GVAX had experienced a median survival rate of 26 months, eight months longer than chemotherapy-only patients.
The vaccine has been granted fast track clearance for phase 3 trials to treat patients with prostate cancer.
A lot of such promising drugs are under development. The problem, Sherwin said, was that it would take a lot more time to develop them fully.
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