OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN: Australian singer Olivia Newton-John, 64, was diagnosed in 1992 and underwent a partial mastectomy and chemotherapy. Her 2005 album, "Stronger than Before" promoted breast cancer awareness. She also introduced the "Olivi
OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN: Australian singer Olivia Newton-John, 64, was diagnosed in 1992 and underwent a partial mastectomy and chemotherapy. Her 2005 album, "Stronger than Before" promoted breast cancer awareness. She also introduced the "Olivia Breast Self-Exam Kit" and helped build the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Centre in her native Melbourne, Australia. Reuters

Australian-US biotech firm Novogen is developing a drug that can completely eradicate cancer cells that resist the effects of chemotherapy. Called Trilexium (TRXE-009), the drug has been recently tested by the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in New York in a pre-clinical study reported in March. Following this, the drug will undergo a follow-up study in which its ability to cross the blood-brain barrier, a system that prevents chemotherapeutic drugs from penetrating brain tissues, will be examined.

Trilexium is designed to target GBM stem cells in adults and neuroblastoma, medulloblastoma, and diffuse interstitial pontine glioma, or DIPG, cells in children. According to a statement by the company published by AusBiotech, stem cells are a group of "parent" cancer cells responsible for tumours, the spread of cancer and its recurrence.

"Cancer stem cells represent a small proportion of the cells in a tumor and they are completely impervious to therapies such as radiotherapy and chemotherapy," Novogen CEO Dr Graham Kell said in the release.

"Their daughter cancer cells that make up the bulk of a cancer can respond to treatment, but the parent cancer stem cells survive all that we can throw at them and live to produce a whole new generation of daughter cancer cells that now resist all forms of therapy. That is recurrent cancer and recurrent cancer is what patients die from

Novogen and Feinstein are exploring ways of administering the drug. Novogen expects the drug to enter Phase 1 of clinical trials by early 2016.

In the United States, Nascent Biotech (OTC:NBIO) is working on developing a similar drug that uses an antibody to treat brain cancer. The drug, Pritumumab, has already received an orphan drug designation from the US Food and Drug Administration, or FDA.

Pritumumab is a fully natural human immunoglobulin antibody derived from a B-cell sourced from a tumour-draining lymph node of a patient suffering from cervical cancer, according to the company's website. The drug targets ecto-domain vimentin, a protein present on the cell surface of malignant tumours.

The drug showed tremendous promise in Phase 2 clinical trials conducted in Japan in which patients treated had an overall response rate of 25 to 30 percent that extend beyond five years post-treatment.

About 1,000 people are diagnosed with brain cancer every year in Australia, according to a report on The Courier Mail. About 40 per cent of patients die due to cancer recurrence within 14 months of diagnosis, and only three to five per cent live longer than five years, the report added.

To contact the writer, email: v.hernandez@ibtimes.com.au

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