A NEW cancer drug that could reverse sufferers’ resistance to treatment has been developed by scientists at the University of Southampton.

The antibody, called BI-1206, is able to stop cancer cells ‘hiding’ from the immune system and has shown great promise in pre-clinical trials.

It is part of work done in recent years on immune proteins which target specific proteins found on the surface of cancer cells, ‘flagging them up’ for immune cells to destroy.

Despite this method being very effective in the past few years, many patients do not respond to the immune proteins or develop resistance.

But the team at Southampton believe the antibody can stop cancer cells escaping destruction after testing the drug on mice.

Prof Mark Cragg, professor of experimental cancer research at the University of Southampton, who co-led the study, said: “With more monoclonal antibody treatments being developed, there is an urgent need to understand how tumours become resistant to them and develop ways to overcome it.

“Not only does BI-1206 appear to be able to reverse resistance to a range of monoclonal antibodies, it is also effective at directly killing cancer cells itself.”

The study, also involving researchers in Sweden and funded by Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research and Cancer Research UK, is the culmination of six years work on improving blood cancer treatment.

BI-1206 will now be tested on patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma in an early stage clinical trial.

Emma Smith, senior science information officer at Cancer Research UK, said: “This exciting research has the potential to be a game-changer for people with white blood cell cancers that don’t respond, or have stopped responding, to treatments like rituximab. It could also make immunotherapy for other types of cancer more effective too.

“The work was carried out in mice, so we’ll have to wait for the results from clinical trials to find out if the treatment is safe and effective in people, but it’s certainly a promising approach and could lead to more potent drug combinations that benefit patients.”

The findings were published today in medical journal Cancer Cell.