Celsion has a "delivery platform," not a "drug."
Quoted from a different message board:
"Celsion has a "delivery platform," not a "drug." The "drug" delivered was doxorubicin, an already FDA approved drug for chemotherapy. What Celsion does is DELIVER already existing FDA approved drugs in a TARGETED fashion. They do this by encapsulating the approved drug in a liposome, that then "leaks" the drug on target when heat is applied. The benefit of this type of delivery is such that the drug is not delivered SYSTEMICALLY, thus causing much less side effects and much less damage to other parts of the body (in this case the heart).
What some fail to see is that the delivery platform worked VERY WELL. This was proven in the trial. There were NO SIDE EFFECTS. Do you have any idea what the side effects of doxorubicin are when administered systemically? It's catastrophic in some cases.
This "delivery platform" which is PATENTED, can be used to deliver just about ANYTHING in much lower dosages, with HIGHER concentrations to the targeted site. Celsion is working with other companies to encapsulate other products. It is of particular interest to companies whose drugs are going off patent, and could regain patent protection if encapsulated.
What went wrong in this particular trial is likely several things:
1) there was no protocol for the length of time heat was administered by RFA. This meant some got 20 minutes, some got 2 hours, and everything in between. The optimal length of time for Drug release has been determined to be 45 minutes. Had every one of the 700 patients received 45 minutes of RFA, the outcome would likely have been much better.
2) The FDA approved drug doxorubicin is probably not the best drug to target liver cancer with.
3) Distant metastases in liver cancer are a severe problem, and caused further problems in the trial, since the doxorubicin was highly targeted.
What does all that mean? It means Celsion has a very valuable proven drug delivery system, that must now be targeted to the right cancers with the right drugs.
