Antisoma's AS1404 found to enhance Avastin in treatment of colon and lung cancer

By Lisa Kerner

Erie, Pa., April 3 - Antisoma said preclinical data presented at the American Association of Cancer Research showed that a combination of its AS1404 and Avastin was more effective than Avastin alone at inhibiting the growth of human colon and lung tumor xenografts.

Furthermore, combining the two drugs did not cause any observable increase in side effects, according to a company news release.

The mean time taken for tumors to quadruple in size was compared between animals receiving the drugs and untreated controls. For the colon cancer xenografts, Avastin added 17 days to tumor quadrupling time and AS1404 added 29; tumors treated with the combination took 40 days longer than controls to quadruple in size.

The lung cancer xenograft results showed Avastin added 42 days (compared to controls) to the time to reach the threshold and AS1404 added 32; the combination added 79 days.

"The very striking interaction between AS1404 and Avastin shown by these experiments is a really promising development, pointing to additional possible applications for AS1404, a drug which already has very substantial market potential," chief operating officer Dr Ursula Ney said in the release.

These findings provide new scientific evidence to support the concept of combining vascular disrupting agents, such as AS1404, with anti-angiogenic drugs that inhibit the growth of new vessels into tumors, the company said.

A separate poster presentation highlighted the strong preclinical data supporting the current phase 2 program for AS1404, including separate randomized, controlled studies in lung, prostate and ovarian cancers. In animal models representing all three of these cancers, addition of AS1404 to a taxane chemotherapy drug provided additional benefit compared with the taxane alone.

London-based Antisoma is a biopharmaceutical company that develops novel products for the treatment of cancer.

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