Meditech says Phase II trial shows early promise

Meditech (ASX:MTR) will enrol an additional 12 patients in its Phase II trial, following promising early results from its HyCAMP treatment for advanced colorectal cancer patients at the Royal Melbourne Hospital.

According to Meditech, the combination of its hyaluronic acid with Pfizer's anti-cancer drug irinotecan reduced the toxic side-effects of the chemotherapy, while maintaining the anti-cancer effects of the drug.

Typically, about a third of patients undergoing irinotecan chemotherapy require treatment modification or are withdrawn prior to completion of their treatment regimes due to toxic side-effects.

"We're not seeing any significant toxicity, compared to past experience," said Meditech director and oncologist Prof Richard Fox. "By itself [irinotecan causes] about a 25 per cent incidence of severe diarrhoea, and a 30 per cent incidence of neutropenia -- a reduction in the number of white blood cells."

To date none of the patients in the Meditech trial have been withdrawn from treatment, but according to Fox the patient sample is too small to say whether the reduction in toxicity is statistically significant.

HyCamp is the first of three combination cancer chemotherapeutics using hyaluronic acid which Meditech is taking into clinical trials.

It appears that hyaluronic acid transports the drug to cancer cells, which express high affinity receptors for hyaluronic acid. When the drug complex binds to the cell, the drug is internalised along with the hyaluronic acid.

Tracey Brown, Meditech's director of R&D, explained that the HyCamp derivative of irinotecan would extend that drug's patent life by an additional 16-18 years. Irinotecan is due to come off patent by the end of 2007.

Full results of the first stage of the Phase II clinical trial are expected in July of this year.