JERUSALEM, Aug. 24 (Xinhua) -- Israeli researchers have developed a new biological drug for acute myeloid leukemia with a cure rate of 50 percent on lab mice, as published Friday by the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
To date, most of the biological cancer drugs used to treat leukemia target only individual leukemic cell proteins.
During traditional "targeted therapy" treatments, leukemic cells quickly activate their other proteins to block the drug. The result is drug-resistant leukemic cells which quickly regrow and renew the disease.
However, the new drug functions like a cluster bomb. It attacks several leukemic proteins at once, making it difficult for the leukemia cells to activate other proteins that can evade the therapy.
In a leukemia patient's body, the white blood cells proliferate without control and without ripening, grabbing places of normal blood cells.
While other cancers have benefitted from new treatments, there has been no encouraging news for most leukemia patients for the past 40 years.
Moreover, this new single molecule drug accomplishes the work of three or four separate drugs, reducing the pain cancer patients suffer from the side effects of several therapies, which is often-unbearable.
The new drug's ability to eradicate leukemia stem cells is also promising. This has long been the big challenge in cancer therapy and one of the main reasons that scientists have been unable to cure acute leukemia.
U.S. company BioTheryX, which delivers efficacious therapies for cancer patients, recently bought the rights to this promising drug from Hebrew University's technology transfer company.
Together with the research team, they are now applying for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for phase I clinical studies.
