Glaxo's Tykerb Cuts Breast Cancer Stem Cells, Slows Spread

GlaxoSmithKline Plc's Tykerb reduced
breast malignant neoplastic disease root cells in one study, helping get rid of the
disease in some patients. In a 2nd trial, it shrank tumors
that had distribute to the encephalon when used with another treatment.

The two reports, presented yesterday at the San Antonio
Breast Cancer Symposium inch Texas, may assist Glaxo, the world's
second-biggest drugmaker, addition its share of the $47 billion
global malignant neoplastic disease marketplace dominated by Roche Retention silver and Genentech
Inc. Tykerb, approved in the U.S. in March and in Europe on Dec.
14, works in patients with the HER-2 gene, which do the
disease more aggressive in as many as 30 percentage of patients.

Evidence the drug onslaughts stem cells back ups the newest
theory in cancer, that a bantam figure of such as cells lurking
within tumours combustibles their growth. Follow-up therapy in that
trial eliminated malignant neoplastic disease in two-third of patients. In the other
study, usage of Tykerb with another drug shrank the size of brain
tumors by at least 20 percentage in women whose breast malignant neoplastic disease had
spread into the nervous system.

''This drug makes look to have got different ways to prevent
cancer from spreading, based on the early surveys we're
seeing,'' said Sir Leslie Stephen Jones, medical manager for U.S. Oncology
Research Inc. inch Houston, a malignant neoplastic disease research and treatment
network, in an interview yesterday. ''It's rare to have got a huge
breakthrough, so at this point we take an optimistic wait-and-
see approach.''

Glaxo rose 6 pence, or less than a percent, to fold at
1,323 pence in Greater London on Dec. 14, after dropping 1.6 percent
during 2007.

Advanced Cancer

Tykerb, known as Tyverb in Europe, is recommended by
regulators for breast malignant neoplastic disease that's advanced or spreading to other
parts of the organic structure in patients with the HER-2 gene. The data
presented at the Houston meeting may assist the company win
permission to more than widely marketplace Tykerb, which belongs to a
family of drugs known as dual-kinase inhibitors.

Analyst Billy Graham Parry of Merrill Lynch in Greater London has
estimated full-year sales of $890 million for Tykerb in 2010. Breast malignant neoplastic disease is the most common malignant neoplastic disease in women, dramatic about
1 million women a twelvemonth worldwide, according to the World Health
Organization.

Tykerb cut the figure of breast malignant neoplastic disease root cells by half
in 30 patients treated for six hebdomads in the first-round of a
study that research workers said may be an initial measure toward
changing the manner malignant neoplastic disease is treated.

After a 2nd unit of ammunition of treatment with Genentech Inc.'s
Herceptin and chemotherapy, 63 percentage of the patients in the
trial were malignant neoplastic disease free, said men of science at Baylor College of
Medicine in Houston.

'Cells Went Down'

''We started looking at our samples and oh, my goodness --
the breast malignant neoplastic disease root cells went down and the ability to form
new malignant neoplastic diseases also went down,'' William Le Baron Jenny Chang, the Pb researcher
and medical manager at the college's Breast Care Center, said
in a Dec. Fourteen telephone set interview.

''This is the first little cogent evidence we're going in the right
direction,'' Chang Jiang said. ''In the future, we may calculate out ways
to barricade the root cells and eliminate breast cancer.''

Root cells, establish in embryos and to a more than limited degree
in grownup tissues, are defined by their capacity to copy
themselves and bend into other cell types. The malignant neoplastic disease theory
suggests that some root cells lose their ability to go other
cell types and acquire stuck in a form of eternal self-renewal,
seeding tumours and refueling their growth.

Researchers, including Chang, have got shown in previous
studies that malignant neoplastic disease root cells defy chemotherapy and
radiation, and that the proportionality of root cells within tumors
may lift in the wake of such as treatment.

No Chemotherapy Benefit

Chemotherapy may assist a ''small figure of patients, but in
others, it offers no benefit at all,'' Chang Jiang said. ''The cancer
stem cells are still around, and they can constitute new tumors.''

The Baylor research workers took samples from the women's breast
tissue before and after they were treated with Tykerb and
measured the figure of root cells by looking for certain
identifying markers. They establish that the per centum within tumor
tissue dropped from 10.6 percentage to 4.7 percentage after treatment.

''We didn't cognize until Jenny's information that our drug have this
ability to diminish breast malignant neoplastic disease root cells, and that is very
encouraging and exciting,'' Steven Stein, frailty president of
oncology for London-based Glaxo, said in a telephone set interview. ''Now that we cognize we have got got the possible ability to inhibit
these cells, we have a big malignant neoplastic disease programme and will be looking
at them in other studies.''

In the encephalon malignant neoplastic disease trial, Tykerb, used with Roche Holding
AG's drug Xeloda, shrank the size of tumours by at least 20
percent in 18 of 47 women in the trial. Ten of those 18 patients
had encephalon tumours reduced to half the original size, the
researchers said.

About one 3rd of women with advanced breast malignant neoplastic disease who
carry the HER-2 factor develop tumours in the cardinal nervous
system, including the brain. Current treatment for tumours that
spread to the encephalon includes chemotherapy, radiation or surgery.

To reach the newsmen on this story:
Lisa Rapaport in New House Of York at ;
Rob Ethel Waters in San Francisco at .