New drug being tested for triple-negative breast cancer

News from the 2009 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology:  PARP inhibitors continue to be a promising line of attack for triple negative.  In a study presented at the conference on a new drug, BS-201, which includes a PARP inhibitor:

•  of 116 women with advanced triple-negative breast cancer, those who received the drug in addition to standard chemotherapy lived a median of 9.2 months, compared with 5.7 months for those who received only the chemotherapy. 

• PARP inhibitors block the action of an enzyme that helps repair DNA. Without the ability to repair their DNA, tumor cells can die or more easily be killed by chemo.

• BS-201, was developed by BiPar Sciences  that was acquired in April by Sanofi-Aventis.  AstraZeneca is also developing PARP inhibitors.