February 2011 Blog Posts (62)

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Rexin-G Receives Phase III Product Designation From U.S. FDA

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted a Phase III status for Rexin-G® (Retroviral Expression Vectors Bearing an Inhibitory Gene), the first, and so far only, targeted gene delivery system developed to seek out and destroy metastatic cancer.



According to Erlinda Maria Gordon, M.D. Chief Medical Officer of… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on February 28, 2011 at 2:00pm — No Comments

New Discoveries Offer First Real Hope For Lethal Pediatric Brain Tumor

A pediatric brain tumor that causes gruesome suffering is finally yielding its secrets. For the first time, scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have cultured human cells from this cancer, Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma, and used those cells to create an animal model of the disease. Their discoveries will facilitate research on new treatments for DIPG, a tumor of school-aged children that is now almost universally fatal.



The advances… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on February 28, 2011 at 12:30pm — No Comments

Innovative Method of Removing Potentially Cancerous Nodules in the Lung is Safe and Effective with Radio-guided Surgery Compared to Other Techniques

Using tiny spheres of radioactive liquid to guide surgeons as they remove potentially cancerous material in the lungs is safe and more effective than other techniques, Italian researchers report at the European Multidisciplinary Conference in Thoracic Oncology (EMCTO), held in Lugano, Switzerland, from February 24 - 26, 2011.



Luca Bertolaccini M.D., PhD, Alberto Terzi, M.D. and colleagues from Santa Croce… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on February 26, 2011 at 11:30am — No Comments

Titan Study Shows Erlotinib to be as Effective as Chemotherapy in Patients Whose Disease Progressed After First-line Treatment

The targeted cancer drug erlotinib Tarceva®, Genentech/OSI Oncology) has comparable efficacy to chemotherapy, and is better tolerated, in hard-to-treat cases where a patient’s cancer has progressed quickly after treatment with first-line therapy, the results of a new phase III trial show.



Tudor Ciuleanu, M.D., from the Institute of Oncology Ion Chiricuta,… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on February 26, 2011 at 11:30am — No Comments

Preclinical and Interim Data From Phase I Clinical Trial of PRS-050 Presented

Preclinical and interim Phase I clinical trial data for PRS-050 (Angiocal®, Pieris AG), currently under evaluation for the treatment of various forms of solid tumors, was presented today at the Molecular Medicine Tri-Conference by Dr. Laurent Audoly, Chief Scientific Officer of Pieris AG in San Francisco. His presentation is titled, "Pre-clinical and Interim Phase I of PRS-050 - a Unique and Novel Non-Fc Domain Biobetter VEGF-A… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on February 25, 2011 at 6:30pm — No Comments

Tumor Suppressor p53 Launches miR-200c to Reverse Epithelial-to-mesenchymal Transition Vital to Metastasis

Like a bounty hunter returning escapees to custody, a cancer-fighting gene converts organ cells that change into highly mobile stem cells back to their original, stationary state, researchers report online at Nature Cell Biology.



This newly discovered activity of the p53 gene offers a potential avenue of attack on breast cancer stem cells thought to play a central role in… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on February 25, 2011 at 12:30pm — No Comments

Inexpensive and Easy Test May Effectively Identify an Aggressive Type of Lung Cancer

Researchers from the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, USA, have found that an inexpensive and rapid testing method can effectively identify a sub-group of never-smoking lung cancer patients whose tumors express a molecule associated with increased risk of disease progression or recurrence.



Ping Yang M.D., PhD, a staff… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on February 25, 2011 at 11:30am — No Comments

Bisphosphonate Zoledronic Acid May Help Prevent Spread of Early Lung Cancer

Italian researchers have found that zoledronic acid, a bisphosphonate that is currently used to help treat bone metastases in patients with lung cancer, could also be useful at an earlier stage of treatment, to prevent the cancer from spreading in the first place.



Michela Quirino, M.D. and her colleagues from the Medical Oncology Unit, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome, Italy have reported… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on February 25, 2011 at 11:30am — No Comments

Astrocye Elevated Gene-1 Strongly Predicts Response to Treatment with Erlotinibin in EGFR-mutant Lung Cancer

Spanish researchers have identified a gene whose expression level strongly predicts how well certain lung cancer patients will respond to treatment with the drug erlotinib (Tarceva®,Genentech/OSI Oncology). Rafael Rosell, M.D., PhD, Chief-Medical Oncology Service and Scientific Director of… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on February 25, 2011 at 11:30am — No Comments

New Way of Identifying Patients at Risk of Dysphagia when Treated for Head & Neck Cancer

Each year there are about 1,000 new cases of head and neck cancer (HNC) in Denmark. Most patients are treated with radiotherapy and/or surgery. While the results of radiotherapy for HNC has substantially improved, a significant proportion of the patients still have major chronic side effects. Dysphagia and swallowing problems are the most troublesome, leading to reduced quality of life, malnutrition and aspiration pneumonia. Various studies have shown that both subjective and… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on February 25, 2011 at 11:30am — No Comments

Frequency of Giving Birth Linked to Risk of Rare but Aggressive 'Triple-Negative' Breast Cancer

Full-term pregnancy has long been associated with a reduced risk of breast cancer, but a new study finds that the more times a woman gives birth, the higher her risk of 'triple-negative' breast cancer, a relatively uncommon but particularly aggressive subtype of the disease. Conversely, women who never give birth have a 40% lower risk of such breast cancer, which has a poorer prognosis than other types of breast cancer and doesn't respond to hormone-blocking therapies such as… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on February 25, 2011 at 11:00am — No Comments

Denosumab Demonstrates Superiority Compared to Zoledronic Acid in the Prevention of Bone Complications for Men With Bone Metastases From Advanced Prostate Cancer

Denosumab (XGEVA™, Amgen) is better than zoledronic acid (Zometa®, Novartis Oncology) for prevention of skeletal-related events (SREs) and may represents a novel treatment option im men with bone metastases from castration-resistant prostate cancer. This is the conclusion from… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on February 24, 2011 at 4:30pm — No Comments

HPV Test with HPV-16 and 18 Genotyping for Identifying Women at Highest Risk for Cervical Cancer Validated in Pivotal Study

A study published online today in the American Journal of Clinical Pathology demonstrated the ability of cobas 4800 HPV Test (Roche Molecular Systems, Pleasanton, CA) to individually detect HPV-16 and HPV-18, two of the highest risk HPV genotypes causing 70% of cervical cancer cases. The ATHENA (Addressing THE Need for Advanced HPV Diagnostics)… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on February 24, 2011 at 12:30pm — No Comments

Gene Expression Signature May Help Distinguish Metastasizing from Non-metastasizing Tumors in Head & Neck Cancers

The validation of a test, based on gene expression and predicting the tumours that will metastasize in lymph nodes of head & neck cancers, was presented today at the 3rd International Conference on innovative approaches in Head and Neck Oncology (ICHNO), in Barcelona, Spain.



Robert P. Takes, MD, from the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Nijmegen, the… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on February 24, 2011 at 11:30am — No Comments

Phase III Trial of Sorafenib in Combination With Chemotherapy Agent Capecitabine for Patients With Advanced Breast Cancer Starts Enrollment

Enrolment for the RESILIENCE trial (NCT 01234337)[1], a phase III randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled for a evaluating sorafenib ( Nexavar®, Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals and Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Inc) in combination with the oral… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on February 24, 2011 at 8:00am — No Comments

First Patient Enrolled in Phase II Clinical Study of TXA127 Following Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant

Earlier today the first patient was enrolled in a Phase II clinical study of TXA127, a pharmaceutical grade formulation of Angiotensin (1-7), a naturally occurring peptide known to stimulate early hematopoietic precursor cells in the bone marrow, developed by Tarix Pharmaceuticals.



Angiotensin (1-7) is part of the renin-angiotensin-system (RAS). For many years researchers thought that it was an inactive… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on February 23, 2011 at 2:00pm — No Comments

Phase I/II Brain Cancer Vaccine Directed to Targets on Cancer Stem Cells and Tumor Bulk Shows Promise in Clinical Trial Conducted at University of Pittsburgh

Earlier today, Stemline Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel oncology compounds that target cancer stem cells (CSCs), announced that it holds the license from the University of Pittsburgh for the exclusive worldwide rights to a clinically active oncology vaccine directed to multiple defined targets on tumor bulk and…

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Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on February 23, 2011 at 7:00am — No Comments

New Clinical Practice Guideline on the Role of Bone-Modifying Agents in the Prevention and Treatment of Bone Metastases in Patients with Metastatic Breast Cancer

The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the world’s leading professional organization representing physicians who care for people with cancer, today issued an update to its clinical practice guideline on the use of bone-modifying agents, in particular, osteoclast inhibitors, to prevent and treat skeletal complications from bone metastases in patients with metastatic breast cancer.



The new guideline… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on February 22, 2011 at 4:00pm — No Comments

Study Finds Denosumab Noninferior to Zoledronic Acid in Delaying or Preventing Skeletal-related Events in Patients with Solid Tumors or Multiple Myeloma

A study published today in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, found that denosumab (XGEVA™ , Amgen) was non-inferior to zoledronic acid (Zometa®, Novartis Oncology) in delaying or preventing skeletal-related events…

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Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on February 22, 2011 at 1:30pm — No Comments

Proacta and Yakult Honsha Agree to Collaboratively Work on the Research, Development and Commercialization of a New Hypoxia-activated Irreversible Multi-kinase Inhibitor

Proacta Inc, a San Diego based biotechnology company, and Yakult Honsha Co. Ltd, a leading Japanese company focused on the development and marketing of pharmaceuticals, foods, beverages, and cosmetics, today announced that the two companies will be working together in the ongoing research, development and commercialization of PR-509, a hypoxia-activated pro-drug for… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on February 22, 2011 at 6:00am — No Comments

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