New ovarian cancer treatment dubbed ‘biological missile’ approved

Today, the NHS has approved a new ovarian cancer treatment. It's been tagged a "biological missile" because of the way it directly targets only cancer cells, unlike traditional chemotherapy.

It's unlike any cancer treatment currently available and is seen as a breakthrough in the scientific community.

The new treatment, Elahere, is "designed to seek out a specific protein... which sits on the surface of certain ovarian cancer cells but is largely absent from normal healthy cells," explains Dr. Lucy Hooper, private GP and co-founder of Coyne Medical, a private clinic in London.

"Think of it as a guided missile with three parts: a homing device, a delivery vehicle, and a warhead," says Hooper.

"The homing device is an antibody, which is a protein engineered to recognize and lock onto a specific target on the cancer cell's surface."

"Once it finds that target, the whole package gets pulled inside the cell. At that point, a highly potent toxic molecule is released directly inside the cancer cell, where it breaks down the cell's internal structure and causes it to die."

Hooper says that the key element of Elahere is how the toxic part stays inactive until it reaches its destination.

"That is what makes this so different from conventional chemotherapy, where the toxic drug travels freely around the whole body," she explains.

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Currently, the treatment is only approved for the treatment of ovarian cancer.

However, Hooper says there is real scientific interest in whether this type of drug could work more broadly.

"The protein that Elahere targets, folate receptor alpha, is also found in higher than normal amounts in several other cancer types, including cancers of the womb, cervix and lung," she says.

So there is future potential for the treatment to be developed for use in wider cases.

Hooper says that this breakthrough is huge for women who have already been through so much.

"Platinum-resistant ovarian cancer is one of the hardest diagnoses to receive."

Usually it means that standard treatment has stopped working, meaning other options were very limited.

"What makes Elahere genuinely exciting from a scientific standpoint is that it represents a shift in how we treat cancer," says Hooper.

"Moving away from blunt systemic toxicity and towards precision treatment that targets specific biological markers," she adds.

The charity Ovarian Cancer Action says: "Elahere is available for women with high-grade serous ovarian cancer who have tried platinum chemotherapy and whose cancer has either come back or progressed within a timeframe that indicates they are no longer responding to the chemotherapy. Their tumor must also be classed as “folate receptor-alpha (FRα) positive”."