However, Dr. Michael Har-Noy reminds us developing useful cancer vaccines has been much harder than synthesizing vaccines for infectious disease prevention. Twenty to thirty years of bench work and clinical trials have yet to yield any immune-based treatments that have real curative potential in patients with metastatic cancer.
Dr. Michael Har-Noy points out that the one type of immunotherapy that has been shown to have dramatic cancer killing activity is the immune-mediated response that results from an allogeneic bone marrow transplant (BMT). The BMT provides definitive and curative treatment for various hematologic cancers and has also been shown to have activity against certain solid malignancies. Dr. Michael Har-Noy says that the curative potential of the BMT is facilitated by the donor immune cells obtained from the blood of a normal, tissue-matched subject. The immunologic cancer-killing mechanism of these donor cells is referred to as the graft vs. tumor (GVT) effect. Dr. Michael Har-Noy has analyzed this process extensively and has used this GVT mechanism as the foundation for the creation of a new and unique class of biologic cancer drugs.
Dr. Michael Har-Noy says that the GVT effect is the strongest cancer cell killing mechanism ever isolated in the therapy of human malignancies. However, The T-cells which modulate the GVT process often also produce a lethal complication termed graft versus host disease (GVHD). Dr. Michael Har-Noy indicates that this complication takes place because the T-cells from the transplant recognize both the patient's normal cells and cancer cells as foreign, and try to destroy them both. Thus, even though a BMT can kill both solid and hematologic malignancies, the often fatal occurrence of the GVHD complication has limited the use of BMT in cancer therapy.
The dramatic GVT immune response seen in BMT patients can disrupt a cancer's immune avoidance mechanism, says Dr. Michael Har-Noy, thereby frequently facilitating complete destruction of the tumor. The GVT effect has been shown to have the potential to cure patients with huge tumor burdens. Dr. Michael Har-Noy indicates that this therapy is often remarkably effective in patients with malignancies that are unresponsive to radiation and chemotherapy as well as other types of immune-based therapies.
At Immunovative Therapies, Ltd., Dr. Michael Har-Noy has created several cell-based compounds, using entirely proprietary methods, that will produce, in a patient with metastatic disease, the same powerful anti-tumor mechanism that has demonstrated curative potential in allogeneic BMT procedures but without the often fatal GVH toxicity. Dr. Michael Har-Noy plans to start a Phase II/III trial of these biologic compounds in patients with pre-treated metastatic breast cancer.
About: Dr. Michael Har-Noy is the founder and CEO of Immunovative Therapies, Ltd. an Israeli biotechnology company. Dr. Michael Har-Noy is developing and testing unique cancer therapies that, when marketed, will probably revolutionize the field of oncology.
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