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Using Charcoal Filters on the Blood to Improve Cancer Treatment
By Michael Brush
Exclusively for InvestorIdeas.com
July 12, 2007
Sometimes in medicine, the cure can be almost as bad as the disease. That’s often the case with chemotherapy, or the use of chemicals and drugs to try to slow down or stop the growth of tumors.
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Side effects can include nausea, hemorrhaging and depression of the immune system because of destruction of bone marrow -- or worse.
The problem, of course, is that when you put a chemical into the body to stifle cell division in cancerous tumors, it can have the same effect on other cells that you want to survive.
But what if you could isolate the section of the body that has cancer, circulate the chemo drugs in just that area, and then clean the blood of hazardous chemicals before it goes back in to the rest of the body?
This has long been considered one potential way to avoid the damaging effects of chemotherapy, and also up the chemo dose against cancer cells.
Now, a small Stamford, CT-based biotech company is having some success with this tactic in patients who have liver cancer. The results so far in one small study: Eight out of 12 patients have shown a partial or complete response to the treatment.
These results could help explain why insiders at this company, called Delcath Systems (DCTH), have purchased nearly $300,000 worth of stock in the past month at around current prices, or $4.50 a share. In the past year, they’ve loaded up on $1.9 million worth of stock, according to InsiderScore.com. That’s a huge amount at a tiny company like this. Delcath has a market cap of just $92 million.
Charcoal filters for the blood
Delcath’s technique to pinpoint chemo assaults on cancer cells in the liver works like this.
First, a catheter is inserted into an artery to deliver a chemo agent to the liver. Next, another catheter is plugged into the artery coming out of the liver. This captures the blood leaving the liver so it can be diverted to special charcoal filters which remove most of the chemo agent. Once the blood is cleansed, it is put back into the body through jugular vein.
The process requires three catheter insertions through the skin. Patients get an intravenous sedative and a local pain killer, and in some cases they get general anesthesia. The chemo infusion takes thirty minutes, and filtration takes another thirty minutes. The whole procedure takes about two or three hours. Patients can resume normal activities the next day. They get four treatments, once every few weeks.
By isolating the liver in this approach, doctors can do more than just protect the rest of the body from the chemo agent. They can also administer a higher dose of chemo – one that would otherwise be potentially lethal.
This technique doesn’t necessarily have to kill off all the cancer in the liver to be successful. In some cases, it’s enough to shrink the tumors so that they can be removed through surgery – a technique known as adjuvant therapy.
A deadly cancer
Why focus on liver cancer? First off, it’s fairly common. The American Cancer Society estimates there will be 1.4 million new cases of cancer diagnosed in the United States in 2007 – and about 16% of them will be liver cancer. More people are getting liver cancer because of an increase in the rate of hepatitis.
Next, liver cancer is a tough one to survive. The American Cancer Society estimates that the five-year survival rate for liver cancer is about 10%, compared to 66% for all other forms of cancer. This is partly because cancer cells often enter the liver from elsewhere in the body and develop quickly into tumors. Since the liver performs important functions like converting food into energy and filtering toxins from the blood, losing a liver to cancer often means the end of life. Often, people don’t die from a cancer that strikes elsewhere in the body – but they die when it spreads to the liver.
Part of the problem is that it’s hard to surgically remove tumors from this organ. Tumors can only be cut out when they are in the two lobes of the liver. But symptoms of liver cancer usually don’t crop up until the cancer has spread throughout the liver. Fewer than 10% of liver tumors can be removed surgically.
Other applications
There are several potential uses of Delcath’s system:
- Delcath says it may be able to use its catheter system to treat cancer in the lungs, pancreas, kidneys and limbs.
- The company is currently doing phase III testing of the use of its catheter system along with a chemo agent called melphalan against malignant melanoma that has spread to the liver. But it is also in phase II trials to test its system in the use of melphalan against other kinds of liver cancer. It also plans to run tests using other chemo agents.
- The catheter system may also be used to anti-viral drugs in the treatment of viral hepatitis.
If it works, Delcath’s approach could be used more widely in countries like China, Japan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Australia, Greece, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. They have higher rates of hepatitis and liver cancer because people there have greater exposure to risk factors. Those risk factors include: hepatitis-B, hepatitis-C, higher levels of alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking, and exposure to industrial pollutants.
Finances
As of the end of March, Delcath has $7.6 million in cash. It burned through $1.3 million in the first quarter, and it had $11.7 million in expenses last year. In short, the company has enough cash to make it through the year, but it will probably have to do a financing in 2008. Delcath has a registration for a stock offering that would raise $17 million.
While commercialization of its product may seem far away – and a dilutive financing is likely before then – keep in mind that biotech stocks can move sharply before they ever get a product to market. Success in key studies along the way, or partnerships with big pharmaceutical companies, can do the trick.
The bottom line : Delcath Systems has quite a bullish insider buy signal but if you buy it, be patient. With biotech stocks, there can be long stretches of time between significant news events.
Disclaimer
At the time of publication, Michael Brush did not own or control shares in any of the companies listed in this column. Mr. Brush is an independent columnist for this web site.
For more on Insiders Corner disclosure, see the disclosure section in About Insiders Corner:
http://www.investorideas.com/insiderscorner/. InvestorI deas.com Disclaimer: www.InvestorIdeas.com/About/Disclaimer.asp . InvestorIdeas is not affiliated or compensated by the companies mentioned in this article.
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