Friday, May 23, 2008

Local biotechs tackling cure for cancer found in Kennedy

By Ryan McBride

U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy faces a battle with brain cancer that depends heavily on tapping the latest advances in medicine — and he may have to look no further than his home state of Massachusetts for new treatments.

Depending on a variety of factor (not the least of which is diagnosing the exact type of brain tumor Kennedy has) the 76-year-old senator could benefit from experimental drugs at Bay State biotech firms such as TransMolecular Inc. and Avant Immunotherapeutics Inc.

TransMolecular CEO Michael Egan said there are many types of brain tumors, and it’s too early to tell whether Kennedy’s condition could be treated with the firm’s lead drug, called TM-601. “There are different grades of (brain) tumors,” Egan said, “and within the grades there are different types.”

Kennedy was diagnosed with malignant glioma this week after he suffered a seizure and was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. But Egan said it may take days to complete the lab work required to diagnose the exact type of tumor Kennedy has.

TransMolecular’s lead drug is nearing the start of Phase 3 clinical trials to treat recurrent forms of malignant glioma, meaning patients would only take the drug after receiving treatments such as surgery to remove the cancer, chemotherapy and radiation, Egan said. The drug is a synthetic peptide — modeled after materials found in scorpion venom — that carries a radioactive molecule to tumor cells. 

Egan said his Cambridge-based biotech company is in talks with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration about the design of a Phase 3 clinical trial for the treatment, and he expects the study to begin in the second half of 2008.

At Avant (Nasdaq: AVAN), based in Needham, executives have recently licensed an experimental vaccine for brain tumors and other cancers to drug giant Pfizer Inc. Avant acquired the vaccine, called CDX-110, through its merger early this year with New Jersey-based Celldex Therapeutics. A company spokesman said that development of CDX-110, which is in Phase 2 clinical trials for a type of brain cancer called glioblastoma multiforme, will be handled by Pfizer, headquartered in New York. Avant executives were not available for comment before the deadline for this story to discuss the potential of the vaccine to treat Kennedy.

TransMolecular said that about 20,000 Americans were diagnosed with brain tumors or other related neurological cancers in 2007. For the 9,000 U.S. patients diagnosed with malignant gliomas every year, the average survival is 18 months, Egan said, and some live as long as four years or more. However, there are no cures for the tumors.