Biotech Values

[loparn]

I don't know the cut-off value in that colon cancer study.
The Tommy Andersson research group did define a cut-off value in a previous important breast cancer study.

"The sum of the scores for each section was then used to grade the staining of the tumor as normal (+++; > 75%), moderate (++; 30–75%), weak (+; < 30%), or negative (-). The most intense staining (+++) was designated normal, not high, because it represents endogenous Wnt-5a expression, that is, the level expressed in normal cells."

http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/62/2/409.full


I believe the existance of a lot of favorable Kaplan-Meier curves for Wnt-5a-survival is an extremely positive and unusual situation in a cancer drug project indicating that restoring an initial low Wnt-5a-signaling might prolong the life expectancy significantly by years.
There are many other studies regarding the link between high and low Wnt-5 in breast, colon and prostate cancer as you can see here
http://www.infoom.se/mysite/index.php?sida=80579&user=9801

And I suspect that they have not got the exactly same cut-off value between high and low Wnt-5a, but that doesn't disturb me too much, since the picture is clear enough in these three type of cancers that a low Wnt-5a is a disadvantage where Foxy-5 has a potential to restore the Wnt-5a-signaling (non-canonical) pathway through Frizzled-5.


To me these clinical data from a total of more than 2000 patients i breast, colon and prostate cancer are the solid foundation of the Foxy-5 project, and after that all the in vitro and in vivo studies well explain the mechanisms of action by Wnt-5a and its mimicking formylated hexapeptide Foxy-5.
I find it very impressive and convincing that there are so many such studies performed by both the CSO Tommy Andersson research group and many independent research groups.


To me the picture is very clear now after more than three years of analizing the Foxy-5 project, that there is a high probability for Foxy-5 to succeed in at least one form of cancer, maybe most likely breast cancer or colon cancer.


The WntResearch home page is OK but not extremely informative, but may be of value for those interested : http://wntresearch.com

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About the statistics I don't care too much either, even if, or because, I was a matematician, but you can find the colon cancer curves linked above intersting enough :

If you study the Kaplan-Meier curves for overall survival in this first small study linking Wnt-5a to colon cancer survival you find that, by counting the deaths of the 25 patients with low Wnt-5a and compare with the 30 patients with high Wnt-5a you find that after less than a year 7 deaths have occurred in the first group but just 2 in the second group and that difference is statistically significant with a p-value <0.05.

AS stated before the picture is quite clear if you consider all the studies with Kaplan-Meier curves in breast, colon and prostate cancer.

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To complicate things though the connection is reversed in other forms of cancer such as melanoma. That is why WntResearch has deleloped the Wnt-5a antagonist Box-5 but which is in preclinical phase (as opposed to Foxy-5 in clinical Phase Ib).