Pentrix Anti-Cancer Vaccine

St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney has achieved a major milestone in the fight against cancer as it has released the findings of Phase 1b 2a clinical trial of the Pentrix Anti-Cancer Vaccine.

Established in October last year, the trial is based on the development of vaccine technology using synthetic human antibodies to the p53 tumour suppressor gene.

In February 2001, St Vincent’s granted Australian Cancer Technologies an exclusive worldwide commercialisation license to develop its technology.

Around 50% of cancers have mutations in their p53 gene, including common cancers such as those which occur in the bowel, breast, prostate and lungs.

The Pentrix Anti-Vaccine aims to target tumour cells which have mutations in p53 working by stimulating the immune system to react to the gene.

Results showed today in the five patients who participated in this stage of the trial produced a strong immune response to the vaccine which is judged bu the production of specific antibodies and T-cells in response to the vaccine.

The current trial followed an initial successful Phase 1a single dose safety trial on four patients and confirmed that, in contrast to traditional therapies such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy, Pentrix has no significant side effects.

Professor Robyn Ward said, ‘While we are still many years from the conclusion of work on Pentrix, today’s results are important as they indicate that Pentrix can stimulate both arms of the immune system in late stage cancer patients.’

‘While these results are impressive, the small number of patients involved and short period of treatments means that it is still not possible to determine if the drug will induce long term benefits for cancer patients. To this end it is important to undertake multi-centre trials in Australia and the US. The trials will determine if the immune response translates to improvement in survival of cancer patients,’ she said.

For more information click on the link above to go to the St Vincent’s website.