Prostate disease and the pharmaceutical industry

Prostate Cancer

Gene therapy

There is also considerable activity in the area of gene therapy and several academic and commercial organisations have R&D and clinical programmes in this area. An allied approach is to design molecules that bind to specific sequences of DNA. One is a compound G3139 (Genta Pharma), called an anti-sense oligonucleotide, which has been designed to bind to a cancer-causing gene called bcl-2 found in prostate and some other tumour types. It is hoped that by binding to the gene, it will switch it off and thus stop the cancer growing. The results of a Phase 1 trial of G3139 in hormone-resistant prostate cancer in combination with mitoxantrone were sufficiently encouraging to justify larger studies.

These are difficult areas of research, but the germs of success are there. If the technical difficulties can be overcome, then vaccination and gene therapy are likely to make a major contribution to cancer prevention and cure in the years to come.