No one wants to think about having to fend off a major illness – let alone a potentially fatal one – around Christmas. That’s why it should be considered cheery news that Vancouver, Wash.-based CytoDyn Inc. (OTC:CYDY) is making headway in the fight against breast cancer.
CytoDyn, a late-stage biotechnology company developing leronlimab (PRO 140), a CCR5 antagonist with the potential for multiple therapeutic indications, announced today continued promising clinical responses from its metastatic triple-negative breast (mTNBC) Phase1b/2 trial and its trial investigating leronlimab for the treatment of metastatic breast cancer (MBC).
Tests on one patient continued to show no detectable circulating tumor cells (CTC) or putative metastatic tumor cells in the peripheral blood and additional reductions in CCR5 expression on cancer-associated cells at 11 weeks of treatment with leronlimab. Additional data in an emergency IND protocol involving one MBC patient demonstrated shrinkage of tumor (via MRI) after three weeks of treatment with leronlimab.
CytoDyn’s second patient enrolled is a stage 4 MBC patient. The metastasis progressed to the liver, lung and brain. This patient was enrolled through an emergency IND. The patient was on Herceptin and Perjita for over 1.5 years.
Herceptin is known to stop working after about 12 months, while Perjita is effective for approximately 1.5 years. This patient received her first injection of leronlimab on November 25, with one 700 mg dose each week.
Shares went skyward as Monday morning came to a close, climbing 6.9 cents, or 11.9%, to 64.9 cents.