Cell Thera's Xyotax yields 91% tumor response in Ph I trial

The USA's Cell Therapeutics reported strong data from a Phase I study of Xyotax in combination with radiation for esophageal or gastric cancer, causing its share price to soar more that 22% to $1.59 on, August 23, the day it was announced.

According to the results, which were published in the August edition of the American Journal of Clinical Oncology, 21 patients were treated to evaluate the safety of the regimen and to determine the maximum tolerated dose of the agent, which is a novel biologically-enhanced version of Bristol-Myers Squibbs' popular anticancer drug, Taxol (paclitaxel), in combination with 50.4 Gy concurrent radiation. Of the 12 patients with loco-regional disease in whom tumor responses were evaluated, four patients (33%) achieved a complete response and seven patients (58%) achieved a partial response (50% or greater shrinkage of their tumor), for an overall objective response rate of 91%.

The study's principal investigator Howard Safran, of Brown University, noted that the agent is "an important new radiation sensitizer in esophageal cancer. Preclinically, Xyotax is a much more potent radiation sensitizer than paclitaxel" adding that it may replace B-MS' drug as "the most important radiation sensitizer in solid tumors."