Provectus Biopharmaceuticals Inc (PVCT)

[MikeCr]

Immunotherapy Stocks Show Strong Promise in Fight against Cancer
By Justin Kuepper on Monday, February 28th, 2011
Provectus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (OTCBB: PVCT), a biopharmaceutical company focused on cancer and psoriasis treatments using the Rose Bengal compound, along with companies like Dendreon Corporation (Nasdaq: DNDN) and Oncothyreon Inc. (Nasdaq: ONTY), are seeing some promising results using immunotherapy techniques in the fight against cancer.

Renewed Focus on Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy is a treatment that uses the body’s own immune system to fight off a disease by either stimulating the immune system or offering artificial immune system components. While doctors have long suspected the immune system was involved in fighting cancer, it hasn’t been until recently that companies have discovered how to stimulate them to effectively combat the disease.

Dr. William Coley was the first to notice that getting an infection after surgery seemed to help some cancer patients, suggesting that the immune system played a role in combatting cancer. However, the advent of radiation and chemotherapy pushed many of these developments to the back-burner, and only in the last decade has immunotherapy really become an area of focus.

Safer Treatments, Growing Efficacy

Radiation and chemotherapy treatments use high doses of radiation and toxic chemicals to kill cancer cells, but often times catch healthy cells in the crossfire, leading to an overall deterioration in health. Since immunotherapy does not typically use radiation on its own, the treatments are widely considered to be less toxic to patients, and are therefore preferred by most patients.

Unfortunately, most immunotherapy treatments to date are only marginally effective and usually only used on early stage cancers. Some cancer companies are aiming to change this, including Dendreon, Oncothyreon and Provectus Pharmaceuticals. These companies are developing treatments that can help early and late stage types of cancer with significantly higher efficacy than other treatments.

Provectus Offers Best of Both Worlds

Provectus Pharmaceuticals has developed a unique cancer compound called PV-10 that is based on the Rose Bengal compound. While traditionally used as a dye, the biopharmaceutical company discovered that it selectively targeted and killed certain types of cancer cells. In clinical trials to date, the firm has demonstrated significant efficacy and a great safety profile.

Meanwhile, the unique compound has also demonstrated what it calls the “by-stander effect” whereby untreated legions also improve. As a result, the company believes that PV-10 may be stimulating the immune system into fighting cancer on its own, which has led to significant interest in its compound by many cancer researchers around the world


http://biotechstocktrader.com/immunotherapy-stocks-show-strong-promise-in-fight-against-cancer-173/