Having sold its corporate self, Tocagen auctions off scientific platform to San Diego biotech This is great news. It looked like Tocagen's phase 3 clinical trial failed so they stopped development of the drug. However, there were some stunning successes in earlier trials and even in the failed trial there were some cases that were deemed a success. However, the control group did a little better overall than the treatment group.
A new company purchased the drug and presumably will do further testing but this time targeted to those most likely to benefit from it!
Pharmacokinetics, Safety and Tolerability of Olaparib and Temozolomide for Recurrent Glioblastoma: Results of the Phase I OPARATIC Trial There are 2 important points from this study:
1. They tested a rat model to see if olaparib can cross the blood brain barrier. This is a standard test that is used for most drugs. They found that this drug does not cross the blood brain barrier in rats. Then they tested in people by giving the drug before a surgery and testing the tumor sample removed and found that 100% of the time it does cross the blood brain barrier and gets into the human brain. This shows that we really can't trust the mouse models for BBB penetration and we need these human tests.
2. Olaparib is a PARP inhibitor (which is approved for other types of cancer so it is readily available off label) and they found that in the test tube it acts as a radiation sensitizer at the concentrations they found in the human testing of tumor samples. They report 36% of patients with recurrent glioblastoma were progression free at 6 months, which shows it has some effect and needs to be studied further to see how best to use it!
UNIQUE GREETING CARDS TAKE ON NEW MEANING IN THE ERA OF COVID-19 This is a new type of greeting card that can be hung on a wall - like in a hospital - then easily removed and reused.
There is a discount code in the press release and they will donate to the Musella Foundation when you use that code!
