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SINGAPORE : Drug company Abbot has chosen Singapore over other medical hubs in the US, Europe and Japan to conduct a trial of a new drug.
The drug could control end-stage cancers.
Singapore scientists have successfully completed Phase One of the clinical trial.
It involved 21 cancer patients with advanced stages of lung and other cancers.
And now Abbott has selected Singapore for the next stage (Phase Two) of the trial.
This is significant for patients and the research scene in Singapore.
When it comes to treating cancer, scientists are racing to find a drug that causes fewer side effects.
The ideal treatment would be a drug that only kills the tumour cells, instead of both good and bad cells.
It is hardest to treat patients with end-stage cancer and pharmaceutical giant Abbott believes it has found a promising drug.
With the support of an A*STAR programme, known as the Singapore Cancer Syndicate, Abbott picked Singapore as the location for Phase One of its study of the drug, to be evaluated in humans (estimated to cost some US$5 million).
Cihangir Kosu, Regional Director - Southeast Asia, Abbot International, said: "Singapore is an outstanding place for us to conduct clinical studies because of the solid infrastructure, the high quality of the healthcare services and the existence of outstanding clinical research.
"That's why we selected Singapore. Although it's a small population, the diversity of the society gives us an opportunity to check and test the drug in a very stringent process."
21 cancer patients, who have exhausted all other forms of treatments, were put on the trial for ten months last year.
The drug works by blocking the blood supply to the tumour, thus killing the cancer cells, shrinking the tumour slightly.
The drug, which is taken orally instead of intravenously, has proven to be safe.
It also has much fewer side effects compared to other kinase inhibitor cancer drugs.
Dr Goh Boon Cher, The Cancer Institute@NUH, National Healthcare Group, said: "Some of the patients are quite ill and they have exhausted other forms of treatment. And therefore when they came on this study, to our pleasant surprise, some of them did very well to the extent of being able to continue to work. In some cases, (they are) even able to go overseas and have good quality of life overall.
"The patients did not suffer from very significant side effects, which include hair loss, lowering of their white blood cell count and infections and so on. In fact, it was quite well tolerated compared to the usual chemotherapy where you see loss of hair, where you see lowering of blood count and infections which may be life threatening.
"The main side effects were elevation of blood pressure, some protein in the urine and some skin rash. These were by and large fairly well manageable in the clinic and no major complications were seen."
Phase Two of the trial is estimated to cost another US$5 million.
It will start in Singapore by the end of the year and will last 6 to 18 months.
In Phase Two of the trial, the drug will be tested on some 40 to 60 cancer patients, specifically for its efficacy on liver and lung cancers.
If proven effective, the trial will then move on to Phase Three to see how the new drug fares, compared to other drugs.
So it would take another 5 to 10 years before the new drug is approved for worldwide use.
Patients in Singapore could benefit by having earlier access to the new drug as the Republic is the host for the trial.
Edison Liu, Executive Director, Singapore Cancer Syndicate, said: "It's very significant, in the sense that this is an outstanding drug that will benefit the patients anywhere and especially in Singapore. The early access to this drug - the availability of this drug to Singaporea cancer patients... five years in advance before it's available in anywhere else in the world - for patients, it's meaningful."
Abbott's decision is also a vote of confidence in Singapore's biomedical capabilities.
Edison Liu said: "It places us on the map as a place where Abbott has confidence in, putting their first-in-man trial here. The first-in-man trial is a pivotal point in a drug's development. If not conducted correctly, the entire development could be derailed. So companies need to have full confidence in the structural, the investigators, and the system."
The study brings together a multi-disciplinary team of clinical oncology researchers, research coordinators, pharmacists, radiologists, physicists and computational scientists from several institutions like the National Cancer Centre and the Nanyang Technological University.
It has also given rise to the invention of a new way to measure the effectiveness of cancer drugs.
And a group of radiologists say their oncologic imaging invention is 30 percent more superior than conventional methods, and they are planning to patent their invention.
Dr Thng Choon Hua, Deputy Head - Oncologic Imaging, National Cancer Centre, said: "In normal drugs, the cancer shrinks because the cells are killed, whereas with these new agents that block new blood vessel formation, the cancer is held in control by blocking new blood vessels which may otherwise encourage them to grow and spread.
"So this new mechanism requires a new method of assessing the degree of abnormal capillary leakiness and flow in cancer. Our invention is 30 percent superior because in 30 percent of the patients who actually did well with the drug, the conventional method showed an increase in the degree of activity. Our model correctly predicted that the drug was working by showing a decrease."
Confident that Singapore can contribute a lot more in research, the Singapore Cancer Syndicate is also in talks with other drug companies to encourage them to conduct their clinical trials here. - CNA/ch
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