Cancer drug enters clinical trials

GREENVILLE, N.C.  —   A potential treatment for many ovarian, breast, cervical and other cancers has entered clinical testing.

The treatment, a collaboration between ImmunoGen and Sanofi-aventis uses an antibody created by Dr. Anne Kellogg, an associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the Brody School of Medicine.

The antibody seeks out and attaches to cancer cells and serves as a delivery vehicle for ImmunoGen’s Targeted Antibody Payload technology to attack the cancer cells with a potent cell-killing agent. Once inside, the cell-killing agent activates and kills the tumor cell as it divides. The technology allows the use of precise amounts of powerful cancer-killing drugs while minimizing side-effects.

Kellogg is happy the drug has made it this far and cautiously optimistic about the future.

“You always hope some of the work you do in your research lab will have some positive benefit for people,” Kellogg said. “There’s still a lot of years in terms of testing in patients.”