Mar
02
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Blog,
Cancer Drugs,
Companies,
Diagnostics,
Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever,
Ebola virus,
Funding,
Gleevec,
leukemia,
Medical Devices,
Medical Supply,
Novartis,
Pharmaceuticals,
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Videos by Ryan McBride
A pair of Novartis ($NVS) leukemia drugs effectively attacked the highly lethal Ebola virus in lab tests, providing clues about what it might take to finally march forward with a treatment against the killer bug.
NIH researchers tested the Swiss drug giant's blood cancer remedies--Gleevec and Tasigna--in lab dishes containing cells infected with Ebola, showing that the drugs were able to block the spread of viral particles from the cells, Bloomberg reported. It turns out that a force behind reproduction of the virus is a tyrosine kinase known as c-Abl1, a close relative of Bcr-Abl, a protein that both Gleevec and Tasigna block.
Bloomberg reported that sales of the two Novartis drugs brought in $5.45 billion in sales last year.
"Drugs that target [the release of viral particles] would be expected to reduce the spread of infection, giving the immune system time to control the infection," the study authors wrote, as quoted by Pakistan's International News Network. "Our results suggest that short-term administration of [Tasigna] or [Gleevec] may be useful in treating Ebola virus infections."
Tasigna stymied reproduction of the virus by 10,000-fold, the news service reported, but researchers say that new drugs could be designed to target c-Abl1 specifically. That could be good news for victims of Ebola, which triggers hemorrhagic fevers that cause bleeding and eventually death in 9 out of 10 victims, according to the International News Network's article on the findings.
The NIH has been a big supporter of repurposing existing drugs to fight new diseases, sometimes ones very different than the original ailment for which the drug was developed. Repurposing drugs is expected to benefit from scientists' deeper understanding of the mechanisms and genes involved in diseases.
- check out the Bloomberg report
- and the International News Network's article
Related Articles:
Stanford investigators match old drugs with new medical uses
Pfizer mines data to find compounds for repurposing
Feb
02
Posted under
AB Science,
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Diagnostics,
Funding,
GIST,
Gleevec,
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Startups,
Sutent,
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Videos by John Carroll
Shares of Paris-based AB Science shot up yesterday after the drug developer reported strong efficacy results from a midstage study of its experimental drug for gastrointestinal tumors. The treatment, masitinib, not only outperformed Sutent, it also appeared to be better tolerated.
Investigators in the trial divvied up 44 Gleevec-resistant, advanced-stage patients in the study between the experimental drug arm and a Sutent group. "After 18 months, 79% of patients treated with masitinib were still alive," AB reports, "versus 20% for patients treated with Sutent. After 2 years, 53% of patients treated with masitinib were still alive," versus none of the patients in the Sutent arm.
That news triggered a 46% spike in AB's share price.
Longer life in the study was also tied to fewer side effects. Nausea, diarrhea and asthenia were the most common related adverse events. For most biotechs, this kind of proof-of-concept data would inspire a licensing pact. But AB's CEO insists that the French biotech can get through the clinic alone.
"At this time we don't need a partner," CEO Alain Moussy tells Bloomberg. "We've been able to execute a large clinical program by ourselves. It's tough, but we are doing it." He declined to comment on any current or future talks with potential marketing partners.
"Masitinib differs from Sutent by its selectivity profile," says Dr. Olivier Hermine, who heads AB's scientific committee. "Unlike Sutent, which targets a broad spectrum of protein kinases, masitinib is very selective, which brings better tolerability. Furthermore, in addition to killing cells that make up the tumors, masitinib has a complementary mode of action that may also kill cancer stem cells and trigger an immune response, which may further enhance its efficacy. These promising results in second line treatment of GIST, which correlate with the encouraging results previously reported in the first line treatment of GIST, tend to confirm that masitinib has an original mechanism of action that may translate into improved survival."
- read the press release
- here's the report from Bloomberg
Related Article:
Sources: AB Science readies $70M IPO