NexGen founder's patent improves chemo

NexGen Biomedical says the US patent 7,507,704 issued to founder Mark Zamoyski discloses an improved method of treating lung, brain,  pancreatic, breast and colon cancers that are driven by HER1  overexpression, and explains why the HER1 blocker/S-Phase cytotoxic  protocols achieve only a fraction of the potential inherent in the  combination of the underlying drugs.

"S-Phase cytotoxics, such as Pfizer's irinotecan or Eli Lilly's  gemcitabine, are capable of killing virtually all cells that are in the  S-Phase, however, less than one third of cancer cells are typically in  the S-Phase during chemotherapy," explains Mr Zamoyski.  "Mechanistically, HER1 blockers, such as Genentech's erlotinib,  AstraZeneca's gefitinib, ImClone's cetuximab and Amgen's panitumumab  arrest and aggregate HER1 overexpressing cancer cells in the G1-Phase.  This results in S-Phase depletion, greatly reducing the number of cancer  cells killed by the S-Phase cytotoxic," he added.

The patent provides a crucial modification to the protocols by adding  existing drugs to provide S-Phase enrichment at the appropriate time,  while using the HER1 blocker to inhibit tumor regrowth between  administrations of S-Phase cytotoxic.