Human Immune-Boosting Cancer Drugs Seen Extending Lives

Merck & Co. (MRK), Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (BMY) and Roche Holding AG (ROG) have opened a new front against cancer with the next generation of experimental drugs that use the human immune system to seek and destroy tumor cells.

The new therapies have the potential to reap billions of dollars in sales while lengthening patient remissions, said doctors and analysts awaiting study results to be released this week as part of the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting that starts May 31.

Building on the success of Bristol-Myers Yervoy drug for melanoma that reached the market in 2011, drugmakers are devising more potent immune therapies or combining treatments for maximum effectiveness. They are also testing the new medicines in more types of cancers, including lung and breast.

If the new generation of immune therapies lives up to its promise, this is going to be a paradigm shift for treating cancer, said Merck senior vice president Gary Gilliland in an interview. We are pretty good at shrinking tumors, but not good at getting rid of them. Immune therapy is a way to begin to approach that.

It will take at least a year before scientists will be able to determine whether the new drugs can extend lives. Still, the strategy offers scientists the first major new avenue for attacking cancer in a decade. In recent years, researchers have focused on treatments that targeted specific genetic processes that create uncontrolled cell growth. While this approach produced some successes, advanced tumors are often able to evade attack within a few months by producing mutations.

Now many believe that by strengthening the immune systems ability to identify and kill cancer cells, they can broaden the attack so it will fight any dangerous malignancy.

Youre setting up a fair fight with the disease, said Nils Lonberg, a senior vice president at Bristol-Myers, in a telephone interview. The immune system is just as adaptable as the cancer.

The financial stakes are high. The targeted drug Avastin, for instance, made by Roche, had $5.8 billion in sales last year for use against colon and other tumors. Nivolumab, a new immune-boosting cancer drug candidate that Bristol-Myers is developing could generate an Avastin-like sales number, maybe even better, if its found to work in lung cancer, said Tony Butler, a New York-based analyst at Barclays Plc (BARC), by phone.

The new drugs are designed to prevent flicking what is essentially an off switch, called PD-1, for immune system T-cells, the bodys key defenders against attacks from dangerous germs, infections or other biological bad guys.

Tumors have this Harry Potter cloak of invisibility, Mercks Gilliland said. The new class of drugs lifts the cloaking device and allows the immune system to attack.

Follow this link:
Human Immune-Boosting Cancer Drugs Seen Extending Lives