BIOInvestor Forum: Biotechs Fight Cancer Stem Cells

The CSC workshop was a hot topic at the BIOInvestor Forum at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco on October 9, 2012,.  At the “Cancer Stem Cell Therapy—Real or Just Hype?” workshop moderated by Nathan Sadeghi-Nejad, Contributor at Forbes & TheStreet, panelists talked about the difficulty of developing therapies for cancer stem cells (CSCs).

CSCs Can Evolve to Resist Chemo

John Lewicki, Executive Vice President and CSO, at OncoMed Pharma. Inc. said, “CSCs can resist attacks easily. They are fundamentally resistant to chemotherapy.  At OncoMed, we are trying to reduce that resistance with our antibodies by having multiple approaches.”  “Early on, we have seen data that is impressive with unique results.  We managed to control extremely aggressive ovarian cancer,” said Lewicki.

Tom Cirrito, VP of Research and Development, at Stemline Therapeutics, talked about the company’s SL-401 lead compound, for treating advanced acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS). Cirrito said, “We’ve treated 76 patients with a large body of preclinical evidence.”

Leslie Crews, Project Scientist, at Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine/UC San Diego Cancer Center said, “We need to distinguish between tumor bulk and CSCs.  We also need a combination of strategies. These are evolving targets.  Cells evolve and evade therapies.  We should introduce CSC therapies later.”