Drug Study Targets Chemo

Results of a small clinical trial announced Thursday found that a combination of biotechnology drugs, including Genentech Inc.’s Avastin, may one day offer colon cancer patients an alternative to chemotherapy.

If larger studies support the results, patients could be spared the harmful side effects of chemotherapy, which include hair loss, nausea, nerve pain and diarrhea.

The research could also offer a new way to use Avastin, an intravenous drug already on its way to becoming a $1-billion product.

The trial, led by Leonard Saltz, a cancer specialist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital in New York, combined Avastin with drug regimens containing Erbitux, the ImClone Systems Inc. biotechnology drug at the center of the Martha Stewart stock scandal.

Erbitux is typically administered with the chemotherapy drug irinotecan.

Saltz divided 74 patients into two groups. About half of the patients received Avastin and Erbitux, and the others received the two drugs with irinotecan. All patients in the trial had inoperable cancer and had relapsed after previous chemotherapy treatments.

Saltz said that patients in both groups benefited from the addition of Avastin. In fact, he said, the combination of Avastin and Erbitux appeared to work as well as the standard combination of Erbitux and irinotecan.

The trio of drugs worked best, but with greater side effects, Saltz said.

The National Cancer Institute, which funded the study, is planning a larger trial to test Avastin and Erbitux in colon cancer patients, Saltz said.

“If we can combine these targeted therapies, and get rid of some of the toxicity [of chemotherapy], that’s good news for patients,” Saltz said. Avastin and Erbitux target cancerous cells, unlike chemotherapy, which also poisons healthy cells.

Genentech said the study was one of several that looked at Avastin with other targeted drugs. “We like the idea of combining these therapies,” said spokeswoman Colleen Wilson. “We think we might get a more powerful outcome; we think one plus one might equal three.”

However, analyst Jim Reddoch of Friedman Billings Ramsey said Thursday’s study was hard to interpret. “It is tough to figure out what is going on. What it says is that Avastin and Erbitux work with chemo.”

Genentech closed Thursday down 13 cents to $48.32 on the New York Stock Exchange, while ImClone Systems rose 81 cents to $41.50 on Nasdaq.