Las Vegas doctor’s cancer drug accepted for human testing

By Marshall Allen

Friday, Feb. 22, 2008 | 2 a.m.

A Las Vegas scientist’s application to begin human testing of a drug that he believes will cure several forms of cancer has been accepted by the Food and Drug Administration.

Dr. Nam Hoang Dang, the 44-year-old chief of hematological malignancies at Nevada Cancer Institute, has been working for 24 years to develop the drug. This week he learned from the FDA that he can proceed with his Phase I clinical trial, which will determine whether the drug is safe for humans.

Phase I is the first in a series of clinical trials. The process can last years and only one in five drugs survives the entire process to win government approval for use, FDA officials say.

Dang’s research involved discovering a molecule called CD26 that plays a crucial role in the development of certain cancers, and developing its antibody to destroy the cancers. He said it is effective in the lab and in animal tests for a variety of cancers, including kidney cancer; mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lungs most commonly caused by asbestos; and T-cell lymphoma, a rare blood cancer.

Targeting cancer cells, he said, is preferable to chemotherapy, which he says is like “carpet-bombing” the body’s cells to kill cancer. Targeted cancer therapy identifies a weakness in the cancer cell and exploits it with a drug that can zoom in like a predator drone for the kill.

Dang pioneered the study of CD26 more than two decades ago when he was pursuing his Ph.D. and M.D. at Harvard University.

Dang’s discovery has remarkable potential because this is the first time any researcher has targeted CD26 to fight cancer. Most drug trials involve attacking already identified targets, not identifying new ones, as Dang has done.

That makes his clinical trial especially risky — but one that also has great potential to advance science.

Dang blazed the trail to apply an anti-CD26 antibody — the drug has no other name — to the treatment of cancer. In 2003 he partnered with Dr. Chikao Morimoto, a researcher in Tokyo, to start a Japan-based pharmaceutical company, Y’s Therapeutics, for the necessary investment capital to help bring the drug to market — and then profit by it.

Dang’s advances were made while he was at Harvard and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, so the two institutions and Y’s Therapeutics share a financial stake in the drug’s success.

Dr. Nicholas Vogelzang, director of Nevada Cancer Institute, said Dang is in a “rarefied atmosphere” among researchers, and that reflects well on the institute.

“Maybe 100 to 200 people at any given time in the United States can claim this degree of intellectual property and commitment to one compound to move it through the process,” Vogelzang said. “It’s clearly one of the jewels of any cancer center to have an investigator like this be this committed over this many years.”

Sandra Murdoch, Nevada Cancer Institute chief executive and president, called Dang’s work a “major breakthrough” that the facility hopes to replicate by attracting more world-class researchers.

The institute has 27 researchers on its faculty, but hopes to be at 80 within five years. Dang’s success will help with recruiting, Murdoch said.

“It’s always good to have a poster child you can point to,” she said.

Dang said it’s likely the Phase I trials will take place at Nevada Cancer Institute, but that’s a financial decision that is ultimately in the hands of Y’s Therapeutics.

Dang immigrated to the United States from Vietnam in 1975 and learned to speak English by listening to sports talk radio. He used a sports analogy to explain that although he’s crossed an important threshold, it’s only like winning the division.

“You’ve done a lot, but you understand that from the playoffs to winning a championship there’s still a lot of work to do,” Dang said.