Two Spanish Hospitals Test A New Cancer Drug

According to the latest news, two Spanish hospitals are testing a new cancer drug .

Soon, they will test the new treatment on a maximum of 24 patients who have tumors with poor prognosis.

The first phase of the cancer study

The study will be conducted at Gregorio Marañon Hospital and Navarra Clinical University.

In the first phase of the cancer study, five patients who have tumors that have not responded to other treatment have already started being treated with the drug (BO-112).

These five patients would be the first of a group of between 12 and 24 cancer patients to participate in the first phase of the clinical trial.

A new cancer drug from Spain

The drug began at the National Center of Cancer Research (Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Oncológicas, or CNIO). Now they are developing it at the above mentioned health centers in Madrid and Pamplona.

The drug is from Spain. However, it does not take long before it is used internationally.

As for a timeline, the first results of the surveys will be ready in June.

The first American Cancer Society conference is in June. This is where they present great advances in oncology.

The drug may enter the market in three to four years.

Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy is a process that is revolutionizing cancer treatment.

Instead of directly fighting tumor cells as with traditional chemotherapy, it attacks cancer using the body’s own natural defenses.

Here the immune system is not only stimulated. In addition , it also learns to identify malignant cells.

With the right training, your natural defenses will be able to cope with the tumor. Immunotherapy shrinks tumors with fewer side effects. Thus, it heals the overall damage to healthy tissue.

These advances are gradually changing the outlook for people with tumors, including melanoma and lung cancer.

Typology of tumors for medicine

Immunotherapy drugs are already on the market and this new Spanish drug will be added to the list.

Initially, it was intended to treat solid tumors that are the most common (breast, lung, ovarian, liver and endocrine cancers, melanoma, sarcoma, etc.).

However, they have selected the patients with tangible and accessible tumors for the studies so far (including melanoma with cutaneous metastasis).

They will transfer the drug with an injection directly into the tumor, guided by an ultrasound, to deposit the medicine locally.

Details about the new medicine

Overall, they will try this Spanish-style therapy on people who have been unsuccessfully treated with existing treatments. Plus, this also includes non-immunotherapy.

First, they must demonstrate the effectiveness of the new medicine. Then they can use it in other early stages of the disease, even before surgery.

The name of the drug, BO-112, indicates that it is still in the experimental phase. But many have high expectations for it.

Overall, it would be the first drug to combine two promising methods of fighting cancer: immunotherapy and autophagy. This is a mechanism that gave the Japanese scientist Yoshinori Ohsumi the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2016.

However, the Spanish medicine does not have to work alone. In the future, they may combine it with other immunotherapies. In addition, they are also testing these options in clinical trials.

A public-private partnership

Taken together, these studies are an excellent example of what a public-private partnership can look like.

In 2010, the National Center of Oncology Research (Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Oncológicas, or CNIO) granted the drug license to an exciting Spanish company. It was a small biotechnology company that was born out of the collaboration: Bioncotech ..

The studies were led by Marisol Soengas, head of the Melanom group at Bioncotech.

In her words:

“Researchers generally get few chances to see the results from the laboratory directly on the patient. This clinical study is the result of collaboration between researchers from several different disciplines led by an amazing team from Bioncotech. We at CNIO are very proud of this big step. ”

They will present the results of these trials at the largest oncology conference in the world, the American Society of Clinical Oncology Conference (ASCO). It takes place in Chicago from July 2nd to 6th.