Exciting News: Special FDA Designation for Mesothelioma Vaccine
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Exciting News: Special FDA Designation for Mesothelioma Vaccine

ByHolly Zink

A company called Ultimovacs has achieved something big in the world of cancer treatment. They received a special title from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for their vaccine called UV1. This vaccine is meant to help people with mesothelioma, which is a rare and tough-to-treat cancer. Understanding UV1 and Its Goal UV1 is not like regular vaccines that protect you from diseases. Instead, it’s a vaccine that tries to make your immune system fight cancer. It targets an enzyme in cancer cells called telomerase (hTERT), which is important in mesothelioma. This cancer is known for growing in the lining around your lungs due to asbestos exposure. The UV1 vaccine is made of three special hTERT parts, chosen based…

ONCOS-102 Gets Fast Track Designation for Mesothelioma Treatment
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ONCOS-102 Gets Fast Track Designation for Mesothelioma Treatment

ByAlex Strauss

An immunotherapy treatment called ONCOS-102 has received fast track designation from the FDA as a pleural mesothelioma therapy. Targovax is a Norweigian company that makes ONCOS-102. The company made the announcement today. It means that ONCOS-102 could be available to help people with pleural mesothelioma sooner.  Fast-track designation is for therapies with the potential to address serious medical conditions that have no good treatments. Right now, there is no cure for pleural mesothelioma and very few viable treatment options. The FDA based its decision on encouraging animal studies and early human trials of ONCOS-102.   Importance of Fast Track Designation ONCOS-102 is an experimental treatment made from a modified virus. The virus allows ONCOS-102 to overcome one of the biggest challenges…

Putting the Newest Mesothelioma “Orphan Drug” Into Perspective

Putting the Newest Mesothelioma “Orphan Drug” Into Perspective

ByAlex Strauss

Last week, the FDA announced the approval of a new orphan drug for the treatment of malignant pleural mesothelioma. According to drug manufacturer MTG Biotherapeutics, MTG-201 is an “advanced biologic therapy” that targets a particular gene defect present in cancer cells. This defect prevents cells from producing a protein that is critical in apoptosis or programmed cell death. Without it, mesothelioma cells are free to replicate out of control and migrate to others parts of the body. MTG-201 also appears to trigger the immune system to produce mesothelioma-fighting T-cell lymphocytes that can target and destroy residual cancer cells. The two mechanisms together give it the potential to help combat mesothelioma in a new and potentially more effective way than conventional therapies….

Orphan Drugs Increase for Mesothelioma
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Orphan Drugs Increase for Mesothelioma

ByAlex Strauss

There is some good news for mesothelioma sufferers in a recent report from Thomson Reuters on the orphan drug market. According to Reuters, rare diseases like mesothelioma are “winning unprecedented attention” from drug manufacturers. More than a quarter of the 39 new drugs approved by the FDA in 2012 were granted orphan drug status because they were designed to treat diseases (such as mesothelioma) that affect fewer than 200,000 people a year. Mesothelioma is an aggressive asbestos-linked cancer of internal membranes. It is considered an orphan disease because it claims the lives of about 2,500 Americans annually. The Reuters report on orphan drugs is good news for mesothelioma patients because few treatment options currently exist for them and their prognosis is…

New Mesothelioma Drug Granted Special FDA Status
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New Mesothelioma Drug Granted Special FDA Status

ByAlex Strauss

The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) has granted orphan drug status to a medication that may help boost the effectiveness of the standard cisplatin/pemetrexed chemotherapy combination for mesothelioma. CBP501, produced by the Japanese Drug company CanBas, is a novel synthetic peptide that seems to enhance the effectiveness of cisplatin by acting on multiple pathways that govern the lifecycle of cells and the natural repair of DNA damage. By modulating the production of a certain enzyme, it allows mesothelioma cells to become more susceptible to the damaging effects of platinum (cisplatin) build-up. At the same time, it prevents the cells from properly repairing themselves. The drug has also shown the ability to resensitize mesothelioma cells that have become resistant to cisplatin. The FDA’s…

Orphan Drug May Help Shrink Mesothelioma Tumors
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Orphan Drug May Help Shrink Mesothelioma Tumors

ByAlex Strauss

The developers of an FDA-designated ‘orphan drug’ for mesothelioma are recruiting patients for a new Phase II clinical trial on soft tissue sarcomas. The drug, called NGR-hTNF is a vascular targeting agent that appears to be able to seek out tumor cells in the body and disrupt their blood vessel formation. An orphan drug is a medicine that has been developed specifically to treat a rare medical condition, such as mesothelioma or liver cancer. The new clinical trial will test NGR-hTNF’s effectiveness against certain soft tissue sarcomas alone or in combination with the drug doxorubicin. In addition to the newly-announced clinical trial, the drug’s manufacturer, Italy-based MolMed S.p.A, has also been conducting Phase III clinical trials specifically in malignant pleural…