"June 5 (Reuters) - A drug delivery system developed by Delcath Systems Inc (DCTH.O) helped melanoma patients whose cancer had spread to their liver live much longer than patients treated with best available care.
The company, which announced in April that the 93-patient trial was successful, will present the detailed results later on Saturday at a meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago.
A preliminary summary provided to ASCO earlier showed that patients treated with Delcath's PHP System lived for an average of 245 days before dying or having their cancer get worse. Patients treated with standard drugs survived for an average of 49 days before they died or their tumor growth restarted.
Delcath's system is designed to deliver high doses of the chemotherapy drug melphalan directly to the liver, through the hepatic artery. The drug is very toxic, but not for normal cells in the liver.
The system aims to minimize side effects by filtering the drug out of the blood stream as it leaves the liver, but some of the drug does leak out.
As a result, the major side effect seen in the trial was bone marrow suppression.
Delcath has begun a rolling application for its PHP system at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and expects to complete the package later this year.
The company has estimated peak annual U.S. sales of $745 million if the system is approved for use in melanoma patients whose cancer has spread to the liver. Use in primary liver cancer as well as metastases from other types of cancer could put the sales potential at $5.6 billion. "
The story just keeps getting better and better.(LONG DCTH since $4's) Congrats to those of you who are still long DCTH with me.
