Scientists developing ‘exciting’ new cancer drug

A University of Auckland team has carried out early experiments on a new cancer drug which displays that level of promise.

The research is led by Associate Professors Jeff Smaill and Adam Patterson from the Department of Cancer Sciences, and Malaghan Institute Professor Ian Hermans.

“It’s early days, but we’re seeing long-term eradication of cancer in lab experiments using this new drug,” says Smaill.

“It’s exciting to see that once the cancer is cured, if we try to reintroduce the same type of cancer, it won’t establish a second time.

“So this treatment looks promising in terms of preventing relapse.”

The drug gives a unique boost to the body’s immune defences, mobilising them inside tumours to help fight cancer, says Patterson.

While the new treatment is currently being targeted at lung cancer, it could be used to increase the chances of surviving many types of cancer, Patterson says.

To further develop the drug, the team has just launched a new company, Stave Therapeutics, which has attracted investment from Unruly Partners.

The scientists hope to optimise the drug’s potential, before launching world-first clinical trials with cancer patients within the next two years.

Over the past 15 years, immunotherapy drugs have been created that help treat about 20 different cancers. However, they are only effective long-term for about 20 to 25 percent of lung cancer patients and for about 5 to 15 percent of patients with other major types of cancer.

Smaill says the team is “like a dog with a bone”, relentlessly looking for ways to develop treatments that are more effective for more patients.

Their innovative approach involves turning ‘cold tumours’, which few immune cells have infiltrated, into ‘hot tumours’, which are inflamed by armies of immune cells attacking the cancer, says Hermans.

“We've been working on a way to stimulate immune cells in the tumour, even if there are very few of them.

“We want to get them to release the signalling molecules that make a tumour hotter, more inflamed, that attract immune cell penetration into the tumour,” says Hermans.

Trials in laboratory models that don’t respond to existing immunotherapy drugs have been promising, says Patterson.

They show the new drug stimulates the body’s immune defences and increases the number of T cells entering the tumour to fight cancer cells.

Stronger immune responses are activated when the new compound is used in combination with existing immunotherapy drugs that stop cancers turning off the body’s immune defences, says Patterson.

“We think converting tumours from cold to hot is going to be the real way to get immunotherapy working better.

“If we can achieve this, we can make a big impact on treating a lot of different cancers,” Patterson says.

Over the past 30 years at the University’s Auckland Cancer Society Research Centre and as members of the Centre for Cancer Research, Smaill and Patterson have created six new cancer drugs that have reached the stage of clinical trials.

Smaill worked with pharmaceutical company Pfizer to discover dacomitinib, a lung cancer treatment that gained global approval for patient use in 2018.

Two new drugs the pair have developed to treat a range of cancers are undergoing phase one clinical trials in Europe and China. They developed a third cancer drug, tarloxotinib, which has advanced to phase two clinical trials in the United States, Australia, Canada and Hong Kong.

In 2021, funding from Maurice Wilkins Centre helped launch their latest research, followed by a $1.2 million Health Research Council grant. Last year the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment granted more than $5 million over three years for the project. Cancer Society Auckland Northland has also provided significant funding supporting Smaill and Patterson’s research.

“We’ve been backing this research for years because discoveries like this give cancer patients hope. Our vision is for a future free from cancer,” says Cancer Society Auckland Northland chief executive Andrew Young.

Over the next 18 months, Stave Therapeutics plans to test hundreds of compounds to optimise the treatment’s potency and reduce potential side effects.

“It’s still early days, but we’re pretty amped up about this one,” says Smaill.

“When you're designing new molecules the universe has never seen before and you're controlling the chemical structure to make things happen in ways you can predict, it's a real buzz.

“There's always a rush when you go: We've doubled the potency, or we've increased the selectivity, or we're seeing a 60 percent cure rate in our lab experiments.”