CALGARY, Alberta, Dec. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- For the first time, researchers have demonstrated that the reovirus, a naturally occurring virus found in the environment, can seek out and destroy cancer cells in a variety of tumor types and locations when delivered intravenously to patients.
Preliminary results from an ongoing patient study in the United Kingdom have demonstrated that Reolysin was well-tolerated by patients and there was evidence of virus replication within several types of tumors in patients who had failed all previous treatments. Of 12 patients who received doses of Reolysin on five consecutive days, at least four patients had stabilization of the measured tumor. Patients who experienced tumor activity included those with colorectal, prostate, non-small-cell lung and bladder cancers.
These early results, presented by Dr. Johann S. de Bono of the Royal Marsden Hospital in London at the most recent AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics in Philadelphia, showed that the reovirus, when delivered intravenously, enters cancer cells, replicates within them and ultimately kills them. It works by replicating within cancer cells that have an activated Ras pathway, a common mutation that is shared by approximately two thirds of all human cancers.
“We believe that these early results are the most encouraging data we have seen to date in our work with Reolysin,” says Dr. Brad Thompson, President and CEO of Oncolytics Biotech Inc., the company sponsoring the study.
Oncolytics has also started patient enrolment in a similar intravenous trial in the United States at the Montefiore Medical Center in New York City. This clinical trial is an open-label, dose-escalation Phase I study in which a single dose of Reolysin is administered intravenously to patients with advanced and/or metastatic solid tumors.
For more information about Reolysin, or Oncolytics Biotech, log on to http://www.oncolyticsbiotech.com.
Oncolytics Biotech Inc.
CONTACT: Janet Vasquez, +1-212-825-3210, for Oncolytics Biotech Inc.
Web site: http://www.oncolyticsbiotech.com/