Derio (Bizkaia), May 23 (EFE).- Next June in Spain and in July in the United States, the human trials of a drug, created by the Basque biopharmaceutical company Oncomatryx, will begin, which has made cancer disappear in mice triple negative invasive pancreatic, lung and breast cancer, for which there is currently no effective treatment.
A total of 150 patients, chosen according to the criteria of their oncologists, will participate in the clinical trials of the new drug, a pioneer in Europe.
The trials will take place at the Onkologikoa (San Sebastián), the 12 de Octubre hospital (Madrid), the Catalan Institute of Oncology, the Vall d’Hebron hospital, Virgen de la Victoria (Málaga), the Anderson clinic (Madrid) and the Pamplona University Clinic, in addition to the Beth Israel Hospital, of Harvard University (USA).
The duration of these trials is two years and if the results are good, a “fast path” to market could be requested, which would facilitate its commercialization in 4 or 5 years, as explained at a press conference by the founder of Oncomatryx, the scientist Laureano Simon.
He has pointed out that the drug in question (OMTX705) could also work in metastatic ovarian and bladder cancers, and in some type of sarcoma.
Simón has been “hopeful and optimistic” with the results of the trials, although he has specified that despite the “high chances” of success, we must also be cautious because there have been cases of treatments that have failed when trying to pass animals to people.
“The ideal result would be for it to be cured, and in fact in some mice the tumor has disappeared, but it would also be great if it prolonged life for years and with good quality, because, apparently in animals, OMTX705 does not generate resistance, nor effects side effects and can be administered for years. It is effective, very powerful and very safe,” he explained.
The “great novelty” of this drug is that it is a conjugated antibody (antibody plus drug) that attacks the “tumor microenvironment” -everything that surrounds the tumor and helps it grow and expand- instead of the tumor directly, which is the treatment route used so far.
“By acting in this way, the tumor does not need to evolve or generate defense pathways. The drug kills the cells that surround the tumor, which are the ones that cause metastasis and immunosuppression, and which, in addition, are its protective shield against conventional antitumor treatments”, he explained.
Simón added that, finally, the drug kills the tumor itself, and all this without damaging nearby organs and cells, because “it only attacks what it has to attack: we call it magic bullets”.
He stressed that both in previous research in the laboratory (with cells) and with animals, the results have been “extremely powerful, much higher than the reference standards”, and he recalled that the origin of this research took place 15 years ago when they discovered that molecular changes in pancreatic cancers “are not recorded in the tumor, but in the microenvironment that surrounds it”.
He stressed that the importance of this drug also lies in the fact that “it opens a new path” to tackle cancers and that if it is successful “others will follow”.
Oncomatryx is a company with a staff of 25 professionals -large pharmaceutical companies reach 2,500- that has managed to develop this research through alliances with European and American universities, hospitals and research centers.
So far, it has allocated 35 million euros to this project and plans to invest another 50 million in the next three years, part with its own resources, “which we already have”, and another part with public, private and international investors.
At this time, pancreatic cancer has a very low survival rate, between 1% and 4% five years after diagnosis, while lung cancer is the leading cause of death in men from this disease and the third in men. women.
In Spain, 8,700 cases of pancreatic cancer, 29,000 lung cancers, and 7,000 triple-negative breast cancers are diagnosed annually. EFE
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