During the 1990s, Pennington Biomedical Research Center scientist William Hansel was trying to develop a sterilization drug when he made a discovery that could one day help in the fight against cancer. Since 2007, Baton Rouge’s Esperance Pharmaceuticals has been trying to develop drugs based on his discovery.
As Business Report details in a feature from the current issue, it’s still too soon to say how effective the company’s first drug, dubbed EP-100, actually is, or whether it will ever be commercially available. But encouraging early trials and a partnership with the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, perhaps the best-known name in cancer research, are important steps in that direction.
“We’re very thrilled about this collaboration,” says Esperance CEO Hector Alila. “It’s a vote of confidence in the potential of the technology that came from LSU.”
Put simply, EP-100 works by targeting a particular hormone receptor found on the membranes of many types of cancer cells, in hopes of destroying the cancer without harming the healthy cells.
Dr. Robert Coleman, a professor of gynecologic oncology and reproductive medicine at MD Anderson, was the principal investigator for the recent clinical trial, which started with 50 patients. Pre-clinical studies have shown synergy between EP-100 and paclitaxel, a widely used chemotherapy agent also known as Taxol or Onxol.
Coleman’s team found that EP-100 causes further tumor shrinkage and prolonged treatment response for ovarian cancer patients whose tumors have grown resistant to paclitaxel alone. The results are encouraging enough to justify a larger study, Coleman says.
Joe Lovett, the managing general partner of Louisiana Fund I and the chairman of Esperance, says he got a call from “the businesspeople at MD Anderson” looking for oncology companies with promising products for their Strategic Industry Ventures program, which MD Anderson says was established to bring “new drugs, diagnostics, devices, imaging agents and information solutions to the market for the benefit of cancer patients.”
As part of the “strategic alliance” announced Aug. 24, MD Anderson will conduct additional studies to help prepare for the next phase of clinical trials of EP-100 in ovarian cancer. It also will collaborate with Esperance to conduct studies needed to initiate clinical trials of EP-100 in breast cancer, and assess the potential of other drug candidates based on Esperance’s technology.
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