Researchers Report Some Success Against Advanced Lung Cancer With Epigenetic Drugs

Nov. 9, 2011­ — A new approach to treating cancer appears to help certain patients with advanced lung cancer, and researchers say they think they may have a way of spotting those who will benefit.

The small study is generating big excitement in the world of cancer treatment because it demonstrates that so-called epigenetic drugs may work when traditional chemotherapy has failed.

Epigenetic drugs work by controlling gene expression — the way information from genes is used to create products such as proteins.

The study is published in Cancer Discovery.

“This is a … groundbreaking study, showing that by modifying the epigenetics of a cancer cell we can get real responses in lung cancer,” said Jeffrey A. Engleman, MD, PhD, director of thoracic oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston, in a news briefing. “And getting real responses in lung cancer is actually quite difficult, so we take special notice of therapies that can do this.” He was not involved in the research.

Tübingen, Germany, November 7, 2011/ B3C newswire / – CureVac GmbH, the mRNA vaccine company, yesterday presented the results of a Phase I/IIa trial in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with CV9201, an mRNA-based cancer vaccine, in patients with NSCLC stage IIIB/IV after first-line chemo-radiotherapy or chemotherapy, respectively. The trial strived to assess safety and toxicity of CV9201 as well as its ability to induce antigen-specific humoral and cellular immune responses in cancer patients. The results suggest that CV9201 is safe, well tolerated and biologically active. The trial evaluated a five dose regime of CV9201 delivered via intradermal injection in 46 patients.

The trial with CV9201, conducted in Germany and Switzerland, was the first to test an immunotherapy based on CureVac´s RNActive® vaccination technology in patients after heavy pre-treatment with chemotherapy. 65% of the phase IIa study patients responded to at least one antigen out of the five antigens in CV9201. “Importantly, CureVac‘s therapeutic mRNA vaccine CV9201 induces responses against multiple antigens in two thirds of immunologically responding patients. Moreover, we see profound B-cell activation in 61% of the patients. This makes an overall antigen-specific or B-cell response of 84%. We also see immune responses against all included antigens. All in all, these data are extremely encouraging and confirm our previous results in prostate cancer,” said Dr. Kajo Kallen, CSO and CMO of CureVac.

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Nov 3, 2011 (GlobeNewswire via COMTEX) — OXiGENE, Inc. OXGN -33.33% , a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapeutics to treat cancer and eye diseases, announced final results today from the FALCON trial, a stratified, randomized, controlled Phase 2 study of ZYBRESTAT(TM) (fosbretabulin tromethamine, or CA4P) in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

The final analysis of the data showed that the combination regimen of ZYBRESTAT plus bevacizumab, carboplatin and paclitaxel (ZYBRESTAT arm) was observed to be well-tolerated with no significant cumulative toxicities or overlapping toxicities with bevacizumab when compared with the control arm of the study (standard chemotherapy plus bevacizumab). In addition, an analysis of patients with tumor burden greater than 10 cm suggested meaningful improvements in overall survival for patients receiving ZYBRESTAT in addition to bevacizumab and chemotherapy. For patients with this large tumor burden, median overall survival was 14.2 months, compared with 11.0 months for patients on the control arm of the study. For the overall patient population, no survival benefit was observed for patients receiving ZYBRESTAT.

November 3, 2011 — Adding the targeted agent cetuximab (Erbitux) to chemotherapy significantly improves overall survival in some patients with nonsmall-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), and an approach to identifying the patients who will benefit has now been found.

The finding comes from an analysis of the FLEX study, published online November 4 in the Lancet Oncology. It was presented earlier this year at the World Conference on Lung Cancer, and reported at the time by Medscape Medical News.

The analysis shows that NSCLC patients who have a high expression of epidermal growth-factor receptor (EGFR) in their tumors have the best response when cetuximab (a monoclonal antibody directed against EGFR) is added to chemotherapy. This high EGFR expression was found in 31% of patients who were tested.

PALO ALTO, Calif.–(EON: Enhanced Online News)–CollabRx, the company that leverages information technology to inform personalized cancer treatment planning, announces the release of a Targeted Therapy Finder application (“app”) for lung cancer. Targeted Therapy Finder apps are dynamically updated online resources that enable physicians and patients to identify diagnostic tests and clinical trials associated with therapies that “target” the unique genetic profiles of patients’ tumors. The Targeted Therapy Finder – Lung Cancer app builds on the success of the first such app released by CollabRx earlier this year for melanoma. The melanoma app was created in partnership with the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) as a first-of-its kind resource for cancer patients and physicians.

Lung cancer is one of the most common cancer types in the U.S. (and worldwide) and is by far the most lethal, resulting in an estimated 150,000 deaths in 2011, according to the American Cancer Society. Lung cancer is responsible for more cancer-related deaths in women than breast and ovarian cancers combined. Some forms of the disease can be treated with targeted therapies (particularly for women), and CollabRx’ Targeted Therapy Finder app was developed to bring this knowledge to the people who need it most.

The Targeted Therapy Finder – Lung Cancer is available now at www.collabrx.com/lung. The app allows physicians and patients to input information about their disease – including the stage of progression, type of lung cancer histology, status of genetic mutations known to have implications for treatment, and sites of metastasis, if any. It then provides personalized treatment-related recommendations, based on peer-reviewed medical and scientific content, that may be of use to the patient and physician, such as identification of potential drugs, diagnostics and clinical trials that may have utility in the specific form of lung cancer selected. The app content is kept up-to-date by a team of scientists and top cancer experts, such as Ravi Salgia, MD, PhD, a professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago, who continually monitor the scientific literature to stay abreast of new developments in the field.

By some estimates, nearly one-third of cancer deaths can be attributed to a wasting syndrome called cachexia that can be devastating for patients and their families. Characterized by a dramatic loss of skeletal muscle mass and often accompanied by substantial weight loss, cachexia (pronounced kuh-KEK-see-uh) is a form of metabolic mutiny in which the body overzealously breaks down skeletal muscle and adipose tissue, which stores fat. Patients suffering from cachexia are often so frail and weak that walking can be a Herculean task.

MDxHealth SA (NYSE Euronext: MDXH), a leading molecular diagnostics company in the field of personalized cancer treatment, today announced the results of a study indicating that several of its epigenetic biomarkers are able to confirm the presence of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) from routinely collected sputum samples of patients with stages I-IV of the disease. MDxHealth is developing a molecular diagnostic test, ConfirmMDx for Lung Cancer ^TM, to help physicians accurately assess the presence or absence of cancer genes. These important new data will be presented at the 5 ^th EORTC – NCI – ASCO Annual Meeting on Molecular Markers in Cancer in Brussels, Belgium (October 27-29)

In this particular NSCLC study based on samples from 92 patients, epigenetic analysis of MDxHealth’s proprietary biomarker RASSF1A, in combination with three other markers (TAC1, GREM1 and HOXA9), resulted in high sensitivity and specificity values of 75-80% and 90-96%, respectively. MDxHeath plans to conduct additional clinical studies to further optimize its ConfirmMDx ^TM lung cancer test.

Experimental Vaccine Targets a Protein Linked to Many Cases of Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer

By Matt McMillen, WebMD Health News, Reviewed by Laura J. Martin, MD

Oct. 21, 2011 — A cancer vaccine shows potential to slow the spread of cancer among lung cancer patients, a study shows.

The experimental vaccine targets a protein linked to more than half of all cases of non-small-cell lung cancer, the most common form of lung cancer.

The study is published in The Lancet Oncology.

The study was conducted in Europe and included 148 patients with advanced lung cancer. It was led by Elisabeth Quiox, MD, a professor of pneumonology at the Université de Strasbourg, France.

The patients were divided into two groups. Both groups received standard chemotherapy while one group received the experimental vaccine known as TG4010. The vaccine stimulates the immune system to destroy cancer cells.

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – The US Department of Defense has awarded Boston University Medical School a $13.6 million grant to lead a multi-site study to discover molecular biomarkers that can be used for the early detection of lung cancer.

The five-year study will seek to identify markers that could help physicians decide which patients require biopsies after having CT scans and could predict which smokers who had no abnormalities in their CT scans will be most likely to get lung cancer.

The collaborators on the project will include military hospitals and Veteran’s Affairs centers across the country, as well as researchers at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Brown University, and the University of California, Los Angeles.

AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 18, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — A new patent covering tumor suppression technologies, including the company’s lead product candidate Oncoprex™, was recently awarded to The University of Texas System by the Japan Patent Office. Patent number 4813746 pertains to the discovery that chromosome 3p21.3 genes act as cancer suppressors. The family of tumor suppressors include TUSC2, also known as FUS1, the anti-cancer agent in Oncoprex therapy which is undergoing clinical evaluation for lung cancer patients in the U.S.