Preliminary results from a trial evaluating Oncolytics Biotech's anticancer therapy Reolysin, an intravenously administered formulation of the naturally occurring reovirus, have shown that the treatment can seek out and destroy cancer cells in a variety of tumor types and locations.

The results from the ongoing patient study in the UK have demonstrated that Reolysin was well tolerated by patients and there was evidence of virus replication within several types of tumors in patients who had failed all previous treatments.

Of 12 patients who received doses of Reolysin on five consecutive days, at least four patients had stabilization of the measured tumor. Patients who experienced tumor activity included those with colorectal, prostate, non-small-cell lung and bladder cancers.

These early results, presented by Dr Johann de Bono of the Royal Marsden Hospital in London at the most recent International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics in Philadelphia, showed that the reovirus, when delivered intravenously, enters cancer cells, replicates within them and ultimately kills them. It works by replicating within cancer cells that have an activated Ras pathway, a common mutation that is shared by approximately two thirds of all human cancers.

"We believe that these early results are the most encouraging data we have seen to date in our work with Reolysin," says Dr Brad Thompson, president and CEO of Oncolytics Biotech.

(http://www.pharmaceutical-business-review.com)