Onyx' Adenovirus Trials In Ovarian Cancer

Onyx Pharmaceuticals has expanded trials with its flagship anticancercompound ONYX-015, to include patients with ovarian cancer, it says.

Phase I clinical trials with the genetically-engineered adenovirus began in April last year in patients with head and neck cancer, and expanded to include pancreatic cancer patients last month, says the company.

The adenovirus is engineered so that it does not produce the E1B 55k protein, which would normally block the function of the p53 tumor suppressor gene in cells. ONYX-015 does not replicate efficiently in normal cells and should not destroy them, says Onyx. However, the adenovirus is able to replicate in tumor cells, in which the p53 function is lost, continuing until the cancer cell has burst, releasing new virus particles to destroy other tumor cells.