On April 21 I reported that a Madison, Wisconsin-based biotechnology firm, Quintessence Bioscience, was moving forward on a drug similar to Alfacel’s Onconase, to treat mesothelioma. The report, from Steve Clark for WTN (Wisconsin Technology Network) News, noted that the company’s QBI-139 is very similar to Onconase, but has not been clinically tested yet.

Of course, on Monday this week, it was announced and reported here that Onconase had failed the primary objective of its late-stage trial. This news was particularly disappointing since the drug already has orphan drug status in the U.S., Europe and Australia due to the very high hopes for its success. Despite failing in its primary objective, however, testing did show that the drug is effective in a secondary effect, helping to prolong the life of those treated after standard chemotherapy has failed.

The report of Onconase’s initial failure prompted WTN’s Clark to revisit Quintessence to find out if the Onconase failure would derail the development of their QBI-139. In his new report, Clarks says he found researchers undaunted and pressing forward. He says they hope to move the drug into clinical trials sometime this summer, and they believe the success of Onconase’s secondary role and hopeful FDA approval in that area will help pave the way for general acceptance of RNase cancer therapies.

In his earlier report, Clark pointed out that QBI-139 has several differences from Onconase in the way it is produced, which he believes will make it inherently more effective than Onconase.

He points out that mesothelioma is a particularly difficult cancer to treat, and wonders if the selection of mesothelioma as a research track by Alfacell was made to help fast-track the development of the drug. Perhaps, he wonders, the drug might be more effective on “more common and easier to treat cancers than mesothelioma.”

Tags: Alfa, Alfacell Corporation, Australia, chemotherapy, clinical trials, FDA, hope, meso, mesothelioma, ONCONASE, orphan drug, QBI-139, Quintessence Bioscience, research, RNase therapy

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 5th, 2008 at 9:03 am and is filed under News, Research/Treatment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.