NZ patients to get first use of new 'kind' cancer drugs

By SCOTT MacLEOD

New Zealand cancer sufferers will be the first to use new drugs that scientists hope will be at least as good as present treatments, but with few of the nasty side-effects.

The drugs, being developed at Auckland University, work by killing tumours and leaving healthy cells alone.

They are being tested on animals and may be tested on humans in two years.

Professor Bill Denny, director of the university's cancer research centre, said most cancer drugs spread throughout the body and attacked healthy parts as well as tumours. That meant their strength had to be limited.

But the "prodrugs" that he and colleagues were developing had few effects on the body until triggered in some way - then they became extremely powerful.

The trick was to make sure they were activated only within a tumour, and researchers were looking at four ways to do that.

For example, most of the body contained oxygen but tumours did not. So the drugs could be made to activate at sites where there was no oxygen.

Professor Denny said the animal trials showed that the principle worked, but he warned that it was a big step from animals to humans.

He was also guarded about the drugs' potential, but did say they could possibly be used on all tumours and that New Zealanders could benefit from using them first.

The university's commercial arm, Auckland UniServices, has linked with two London research bodies and formed a company called Proacta Therapeutics to work on the drugs. The firm is trying to raise up to $5 million for expansion.

UniServices chief executive officer Dr John Kernohan said his researchers had between 30 and 50 of the drugs.

"We think they're very powerful. We wouldn't be forming the company if we did not have some very encouraging results."

Dr Kernohan said Auckland had excellent cancer researchers, and drugs could be developed here at less than half the cost of such work in the United States or Britain.

A similar drug had being tested in US hospitals, and one in Britain, but "we think ours are better".

nzherald.co.nz/health