This Company Marks A Milestone In The March Against Cancer

Rare Cancer Day on Sept. 30 was an opportunity for many to reflect: What would they give for one more moment with their loved ones? 

Most people pass the day without considering the precious gift of life, without counting each opportunity they get to hug and thank the people in their lives.  

People with cancer, however, know how precious each moment is. Over 1.8 million people were diagnosed with cancer in 2021, and that same year it claimed the lives of 608,000. 

Plus Therapeutics Inc. PSTV recently announced a milestone in its battle against rare and difficult-to-treat forms of cancer. The company’s leading treatment — formerly known as 186RNL — was given the new name rhenium (186Re) obisbemeda by World Health Organization. This treatment will soon be evaluated in Phase 2 trials as a new potential option for patients with difficult and deadly cancer tumors.

Radiating Hope

The World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Nonproprietary Name (INN) Expert Committee assigned the name rhenium (186Re) obisbemeda to Plus Therapeutics’ investigational drug candidate. This novel drug is intended to carry a higher and more targeted dose of radiation that is able to blast the cancer without severely damaging surrounding tissue — a problem often associated with more traditional forms of radiotherapy.

The company is currently or will be evaluating rhenium (186Re) obisbemeda in Phase 1 clinical trials for rare cancer forms: leptomeningeal metastases (LM), recurrent glioblastoma (GBM), and pediatric brain cancer. For LM, if patients are left untreated, their survival is 4-6 weeks; if patients are treated with a combination of radiation therapy and chemotherapy, their survival increases to 3-6 months, and Plus Therapeutics thinks its targeted radiotherapy rhenium (186Re) obisbemeda may be an advancement in this treatment. 

About half of all cancer patients will undergo some form of traditional radiation therapy. This treatment is external, with the radiation coming from a machine outside the body, and this means that the harmful rays are less targeted and more likely to damage healthy tissue as well as cancerous cells. The drug Plus Therapeutics is developing, however, delivers a radiation source internally to the patient — a medical advancement seeing increasing popularity, as it makes it possible to target the harmful cancer directly.

Rhenium (186Re) obisbemeda will soon move on to its next phase of trials. In Phase 1, it was used to treat recurrent GBM in patients, delivering 20 times the dose of radiation compared with standard external beam radiation therapy (EBRT) but without significant toxicity. 

Plus Therapeutics is conducting a Phase 1 clinical trial on LM cancer — tumors that have metastases usually from the lungs or breast to the brain or spinal cord — applying initial doses of rhenium (186Re) obisbemeda. 

Other companies working to provide targeted radiotherapeutic treatments include Actinium Pharmaceuticals Inc. ATMN.

“The assignment of rhenium (186Re) obisbemeda as the recommended INN for 186RNL is another important milestone in the ongoing development of our lead targeted radiotherapeutic as we plan to move it towards mid- and late-stage clinical development, including a planned Phase 2 trial in patients with recurrent glioblastoma by the end of 2022,” said Dr. Marc H. Hedrick, president, and CEO of Plus Therapeutics. 

To learn more about Plus Therapeutics, visit its website here.

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Featured photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash.