$PVCT: Provectus Pharmaceuticals Announces H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center Initiates Phase 1 Study of PV-10 to Elucidate Bystander Effect

Provectus issued a PR today to announce the Moffitt human trial and immunological MOA characterization work.

Dr. Sarnaik's quote, below and approved by the cancer & research center, highlights two key points.

First, verifying through this human work the second set of Moffitt murine results, which [as I wrote yesterday] are highly anticipated and will be presented at a very high profile conference later this year, is both important and, I think, highly likely. To garner the use of "verifying" from Moffitt in the quote also is important.

Second, the notion of PV-10 making cancer treatment more effective in combination with other therapies also is important (very, actually); particularly for late stage patients (a group not targeted by Provectus' current registration pathway for PV-10, which is to facilitate the treatment of Stage III and early-Stage IV patients) and those with heavy tumor burden.

Craig's quote, below, highlights the same key point about PV-10 therapy combinations.

He clearly is speaking to big Pharma. Foote et al.'s initial and ongoing work combining PV-10 and radiotherapy are showing dramatic improvement for patients with much later stage disease (Stage IV) and heavy tumor burden. Craig et al.'s SITC-published work provided additional data demonstrating the use of PV-10 in combination with systemic chemotherapy (Fluorouracil or 5-FU, and trademarked as Efudex).

I have to think Big Pharma was very excited by Craig's study (the data for which, again, was shown at SITC) showing the improvement of chemotherapy when combined with PV-10 and, specifically, the improvement of 5-FU, another "dirt cheap" drug (see the table to the right, and this link from 2004 regarding the cost of 5-FU).

It is growing clearer PV-10 can be used first (before surgery), second, last and everywhere in between for cancer patient treatment. Showing further effectiveness in combination for late stage disease patients and those with heavy tumor burden adds to eventual PV-10 treatment decision tree.