New cancer drug to begin trials in multiple myeloma patients

Scientists at Imperial College London have developed a new cancer drug which they plan to trial in multiple myeloma patients by the end of next year. In a paper published today in the journal Cancer Cell , the researchers report how the drug, known as DTP3, kills myeloma cells in laboratory tests in human cells and mice, without causing any toxic side effects, which is the main problem with most other cancer drugs. The new drug works by stopping a key process that allows cancer cells to multiply. The team have been awarded Biomedical Catalyst funding from the Medical Research Council (MRC) to take the drug into a clinical trial in multiple myeloma patients, scheduled to begin in late 2015. Multiple myeloma is an incurable cancer of the bone marrow, which accounts for nearly two per cent of all cancer deaths. Professor Guido Franzoso , from the Department of Medicine at Imperial College London, who led the research, said: "Lab studies suggest that DTP3 could have therapeutic benefit for patients with multiple myeloma and potentially several other types of cancer, but we will need to confirm this in our clinical trials, the first of which will start next year." The new drug was developed by studying the mechanisms that enable cancer cells to outlive their normal lifespan and carry on multiplying. In the 1990s, a protein called nuclear factor kappa B (NF-kB), which plays an important role in inflammation, and the immune and stress response systems, was discovered to be overactive in many types of cancer, and responsible for switching off the normal cellular mechanisms that naturally lead to cell death.