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Originally published on 03/14/2002
In chemotherapy, a big challenge is delivering the drug to specific cells or regions -- and having it stay there. In the case of solid tumors, even when an anticancer drug is injected directly, some medicine will circulate in the blood and attack healthy cells. This is what makes chemo so awful for patients. If drugs would only stay in tumors, doctors could be more aggressive with treatment.
This is the problem that FeRx is solving, with an idea that sounds Saturday-morning-cartoon, but really isn't: magnets. Binding drugs to magnetic material has been tried before, but traditional materials weren't magnetic enough (and the magnets available weren't powerful enough) for an effective solution, except for tumors very close to the skin.
Jacki Johnson, CEO of FeRx, told me that her company has developed a system that employs a new magnetic material that's milled together with carbon, to which the drug doxorubicin binds. FeRx uses a powerful 5-kilogauss electric magnet that's about the size of a soda can to pull a magnetic/drug solution through a catheter wall and right into a tumor, where the magnet holds it until the drug is metabolized. The iron in the solution is later absorbed by the body.
FeRx-based treatment can be done on an outpatient basis. In liver cancer trials, Jacki says the solution has increased survival of patients getting doxorubicin through traditional catheterization from 3 months to 9-16 months.
The convergence of pharmacology and physics is nothing new, but I found this case interesting because the drug in question is old enough to be generic, and the innovation is almost completely on the physics side -- the composition and manufacture of the iron/carbon magnetic material.
- Rafe Needleman
email: rafe-needleman@catchoday.com
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