Biotech Values

[projectchris]

Exel-By boosting innate immunity, researchers eradicate aggressive prostate cancer in mice.


https://sciencelife.uchospitals.edu/2017/03/08/by-boosting-innate-immunity-researchers-eradicate-aggressive-prostate-cancer-in-mice/



“Our findings could also explain why some patients in the COMET-1 trial did not benefit from the drug,” Patnaik said. “This Phase-III trial included patients who had already received aggressive chemotherapy, which may have compromised their immune systems.”

This study is the first to demonstrate the use of a small-molecule inhibitor “to convert an immunologically ‘cold’ prostate cancer into one that is ‘hot,’ and potentially more primed for response to T-cell immunotherapy,” he said.


http://cancerdiscovery.aacrjournals.org/content/candisc/early/2017/03/07/2159-8290.CD-16-0778.full.pdf


I can't copy and paste from the the link above, but I find it interesting the effect was only on PTEN deficient tumor cells and it also appears that docetaxel had the same effect on SC1 cell lines.

What makes this real interesting is that PTEN promotes chromosome stability and DNA repair. Consequently, loss of PTEN function increases genomic instability.-----This is the basis of Cotellic/Atezo response in MSS Colon cancer


At the latest investor presentation for Exelixis the CEO is starting to talk about XL-499 a PI3K-d drug that is also thought to be a good drug to combine with immunotherapy drugs to obtain a immuno permissive environment to "turn cold tumors into hot tumors"