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news.Nuvilex has announced that its subsidiary, Medical Marijuana Sciences, plans to use the proprietary cellulose-based live-cell encapsulation technology known as Cell-in-a-Box to develop treatments for serious and deadly forms of cancer.
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The treatments will deliver cancer-fighting agents based on constituents of Cannabis (marijuana) that are known as cannabinoids.
In developing cancer treatments utilizing the Cell-in-a-Box live-cell encapsulation technology, living cells that are capable of converting anti-cancer prodrugs into their cancer-killing forms are enclosed in protective cellulose-based, pin-head-sized capsules that are implanted in or near a cancer tumor.
Following implantation of the Cell-in-a-Box capsules, the anticancer prodrugs are then administered. The combination of the Cell-in-a-Box technology with the anti-cancer prodrug ifosfamide has been shown in Phase I/II trials conducted in the early 2000s to be extremely effective in treating patients with advanced inoperable pancreatic cancer.
When the data from those trials were compared with historical data for Gemzar (the only drug approved to date by the FDA as a single agent for the treatment of advanced pancreatic cancer), the median survival time was increased to 11 months (from 5.7 months for Gemzar) using Nuvilex’s treatment and the one-year survival rate with Nuvilex’s treatment (36%) was double that seen with Gemzar(R) (18%).
Tumor sizes were also reduced from 25-50% in four out of 14 patients and no serious treatment-related side-effects were experienced by any of the patients using the Cell-in-a-Box plus ifosfamide combination. This is because only one-third the dose of ifosfamide normally employed in treating other forms of cancer was used in the trials due to the unique nature of the Cell-in-a-Box delivery system.
In 2013, Nuvilex acquired exclusive worldwide and patented rights to use this cellulose-based encapsulation technology for the development of treatments for all forms of cancer.
Medical Marijuana Sciences intends to take advantage of the opportunity to employ the Cell-in-a-Box encapsulation technology together with constituents of Cannabis for the development of treatments for some of the deadliest and most difficult-to-treat forms of cancer, such as gliomas (a type of brain cancer) and pancreatic cancer.
The type of cells encapsulated using the Cell-in-a-Box live-cell encapsulation technology will be those that optimize the effectiveness and safety of naturally-occurring cannabinoids against such cancers in the same way that the technology was used in developing a unique treatment for pancreatic cancer.
Medical Marijuana Sciences scientific advisory board Dr Mark L. Rabe noted reputable scientific journals contain numerous reports that confirm the anti-cancer properties of cannabinoids.
"Initial trials have also documented the effectiveness of treating pancreatic cancer using the Cell-in-a-Box live-cell encapsulation technology.
"When taken along with the fact that Medical Marijuana Sciences’ parent company, Nuvilex, owns the exclusive worldwide rights to utilize this technology in developing cancer treatments, we believe that Medical Marijuana Sciences is in a unique position to develop cannabinoid-based treatments for cancer that will set it far apart from others in the medical marijuana arena," Rabe added.