A SIX-IN-ONE British-made drug can treat multiple common cancers by blocking tumour cells from hiding from the immune system.
Experimental tablet GRWD5769 shrank cancers in a third of patients who had become incurable after previous treatment failed.
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The experimental tablet GRWD5769 helped to treat six different types of cancer Credit: Getty
The same treatment approach was proven to work against six tumour types, including the bladder, cervix, bowel, lung, liver and head and neck.
They shrank by up to 95 per cent in a trial of 83 people led by the Christie NHS Trust in Manchester.
Drug success varied by cancer type but 31 per cent of patients saw their tumour stop growing or shrink.
The twice-a-day pill was invented by Greywolf Therapeutics in Oxford, backed by more than £1million of UK Government funding.
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Drug success varied by cancer type but 31 per cent of patients saw their tumour stop growing or shrink
WHAT IS IMMUNOTHERAPY?
Immunotherapy is a modern cancer treatment that is one of the biggest breakthroughs in tackling the disease in decades.
According to the Cancer Research: “Immunotherapy ‘wakes up’ a patient’s own immune system so it can fight cancer.”
Immunotherapy treatment works in two ways:
Stimulating a patient’s immune system to work harder to attack cancer cells
Injecting a patient with extra immune system components such as antibodies or white blood cells
The treatment is fairly new and scientists are researching ways to harness the power of the immune system.
Studies are now combining the immune-boosting technique with other ways to lower cancer cells’ defences and make them more vulnerable to attack.
It works by blocking an enzyme that cancer cells use to hide from the immune system.
This exposes tumours to killer white blood cells so that immunotherapy, which uses the body’s natural defences to beat the disease, worked where it had previously failed.
Trial chief Professor Stefan Symeonides, NHS doctor and Edinburgh University expert, said: “This exciting new type of immunotherapy reveals hidden aspects of the cancer to the immune system to renew the immune response and then keep it active.
“It is fantastic to be able to bring this new approach to clinical trials and see our patients benefit.”
Patients in the trial were given GRWD5769 alongside existing immunotherapy drug cemiplimab after their usual treatment stopped working.
Results presented at the conference of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) showed the drug combination stopped cancer from growing or shrank it for at least six months in up to 55 per cent of people, with lung cancer patients most likely to benefit.
The six cancers included in the trial account for a third of all cases diagnosed in the UK – around 133,000 out of a total 400,000 per year.
Professor Fiona Thistlewaite, a medical director at the Christie, said: “Immunotherapy has been a game-changer in the way we treat cancer but the number of people that can benefit is still relatively low.
“What excites me about this trial is the combination of strong signals of efficacy across six tumour types that have shown resistance to immunotherapy, with very few side effects.
“There’s a lot more work to be done before it reaches the clinic but for a brand new drug to show that in so many hard-to-treat cancers gives me genuine optimism.”
