Promising Australian cancer drug on show in the U.S.

A cancer drug in the process of being developed by two Australian companies has shown promising results in preliminary trials on animals.

The new drug, BNC105, developed by the Adelaide-based biotech company Bionomics and pharmaceutical research company Novogen was seen to be effective in disrupting both blood supply and tumour growth in animals with lung and brain cancers.

The results were presented at the American Association for Cancer Research conference in San Diego, one of the world's largest meetings of international cancer experts.

These latest results now indicate that six tumour types have been sensitive to BNC105 in animal tests.

The drug is currently undergoing a clinical trial in patients with advanced cancer at three Melbourne health centres: the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, the Western Hospital and the Royal Melbourne Hospital and the data presented at the conference showed that low doses of BNC105, taken intravenously, in combination with the drug Avastin, enhanced the anti-cancer effect on both cancer blood vessels and tumours.

The clinical trial has shown that the combined treatment extended the duration of tumour blood vessel shutdown from one day to five days.

According to Bionomics the added advantage of BNC105 is that it is cleared from healthy tissue within 24 hours but remains at high levels in the tumour, and this produces the maximum anti-cancer result.

The U.S. arm of Novogen, Marshall Edwards, also presented preclinical data at the conference on it's drug triphendiol.

Researchers at the University of Alabama say they found triphendiol also showed equally promising results in trials with animals, for treating pancreatic and bile duct cancer.

The animal studies again showed that combining the drug with chemotherapy inhibited tumour growth more effectively than either drug alone.

Marshall Edwards has now begun phase I trials to establish safe dosage levels and to also see whether the drug has any adverse effects.