Lung Cancer is a deadly disease taking away lives of hundreds of people every year. More and more studies and researches are being conducted in the arena for treatment of lung cancer. Many organizations and teams are working towards new formulations for the treatment.
Lovelace Biomedical is a non-profit contract research organization that conducts health effects research and helps pharmaceutical companies to advance their drug development studies from preclinical stage to the clinical trials. Lovelace Biomedical; in collaboration with Lonza; has developed and advanced a novel formulation for 5-azacytidine for treatment of lung cancer. Their recent pharmacokinetic and pharmacology research has showed inhaled 5-AZA dry powder formulation had a significant effect in rat model of epigenetic lung cancer treatment. A stable dry powder formulation of 5AZA was developed due to ineffectiveness of epigenetic therapy through demethylation of 5-methylcytosine.
In this study, inhaled dry powder 5AZA showed superior pharmacokinetic properties in lung, brain, blood and liver as compared to the injected formulation and for all tissues except lung. These findings could lead to use of this drug as the first inhaled dry powder therapeutic for treatment of local and metastatic lung cancer. It can be used for adjuvant therapy as well as in combination with immunotherapy for improvement in patients’ survival rate. This work has been published in the British Journal of Cancer and is being presented at Drug Delivery to the Lung in Edinburgh.
Dr. Steve Belinsky, the lead scientist on the publication said, “Lung cancer is a devastating disease with current standard of care only providing modest improvement for patients. The advanced approach of delivery to the lung with a novel and patented formulation that also enters the blood for delivery to other tissues improves the potential of applying epigenetic therapy to treat lung and accompanying metastatic disease.”
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