announced on June 24 that it would be collaborating with cancer researchers and immunologists at the UK’s Cardiff University, located in Wales, to assess the company’s therapeutic, gene-based cancer vaccine, TroVaxÒ, when used in combination with chemotherapy drugs Alimta and cisplatin.
The Phase I/II study will be funded by the June Hancock Mesothelioma Research Fund (JHMRF), a registered, independent UK charity which supports advanced research, awareness and information for mesothelioma victims and their families, friends and caregivers, as well as the general public.
The research team will be led by Cardiff University’s Dr. Zsuzsanna Tabi, a cancer immunologist, in cooperation with oncologist Dr. Jason Lester of the Velindre Cancer Center in Cardiff.
The Phase I/II study will build on previous research, including a feasibility study, already completed by Dr. Tabi and also funded by JHMRF. According to Dr. Tabi, patient recruitment for the study will begin later in the year.
Alimta (generic name pemetrexed) and cisplatin are currently the chemotherapy agents of choice for treating malignant pleural mesothelioma, or MPM, one of the several types of mesothelioma that result from exposure to asbestos fibers, and the most prevalent, occurring in 75 percent of mesothelioma diagnoses.
Pemetrexed is one of a class of chemicals called antifolates, which block a form of vitamin B cancer cells must have to replicate. Pemetrexed is also used to counteract non-small cell lung cancer. Sold under the brand name Alimta, and manufactured by U.S. pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Company , it is the first chemotherapy drug to be approved by the FDA.
Administered in combination with cisplatin, which acts by cross-linking DNA inside the cell, the regimen has been called “the preferred first-line treatment for MPM” in a recent report published in Medscape Today.
TroVaxÒ, a gene-based cancer vaccine targeting 5T4 – a glycoprotein expressed in many different cancerous tumors, including mesothelioma, but only marginally in normal epithelial cells – has been shown by Dr. Tabi et al to be both innocuous and capable of creating immune responses in other types of cancers. This study will, however, be the first time it is used to treat mesothelioma in the UK.
TroVaxÒ can be administered “as is” as an injection to trigger the body’s defenses, or can be reformulated by using a patient’s own immune cells to target tumors. This adaptation allows for more specific targeting of individual tumors via the unique protein markers on cancer cells.
If successful in mitigating mesothelioma, or extending lifetimes beyond the three to four months currently provided by chemotherapy alone, TroVaxÒ will be the first in a new generation of vaccines that will, hopefully, attract both more investment in research and provide a caveat to the current prognosis offered by most oncologists; a year, or perhaps 18 months, to live.
More than 60,000 people in the UK are predicted to die from mesothelioma by 2050. The current death toll has risen to 2000 per year, from 153 a mere 42 years ago. In spite of this increase, only one in 120 knows they have the disease, which can lie dormant for up to six decades before producing the kinds of symptoms that readily allow diagnosis.
