A new drug from Israel’s pharmaceutical company is being touted as a treatment for patients with alopechia, an aggressive form of skin cancer.
According to The Jerusalem Press, Alvina, which has been in clinical trials for a year, is being developed by the Israeli pharmaceutical company, Belsys, to treat patients with an aggressive type of alopepa, also known as melanoma.
“We are developing a treatment that can be used as a first-line therapy for patients who have been diagnosed with alpaca-related alopaca,” Dr. Roni Shafir, president of the Israel-based Israel-Israel Medical Association told The Jerusalem Public Radio.
“It will not only treat alopacias, but will also be used in other cancers as well.”
Dr. Shafire said the drug, called M-PEG-Pyrrolidinium-2, was developed to treat alpacias in two different ways.
It is a potent inhibitor of a protein called PEG-1α, which is responsible for melanoma’s growth.
The drug also blocks the enzyme responsible for making PEG1α.
While the drug is still being tested, Dr. Shavit Kamin, head of dermatology at Bar-Ilan University, told the Jerusalem Press that it could be effective for some patients with melanomas and other types of skin cancers.
“The drug works very well for melanomas, and it could also be effective in other skin cancers,” Dr Kamin said.
“It is one of the strongest drugs for melanosarcoma patients that we know of.
It also inhibits the growth of melanoma cells in the body,” he added.
The treatment is being tested in patients with a type of melanomas known as a non-melanoma skin cancer, and the researchers are also developing it to treat melanoma-like tumors in the head and neck, and to treat other skin cancer types.
Dr. Simeon Rabinovitz, a researcher at the Israeli Academy of Sciences’ Institute for Biological Studies and Genetics, told The Associated Press that the drug’s effects on the body were similar to the treatment for alopapias.
“I would say it has similar effects on cancer cells, similar to that of chemotherapy,” he said.
The Israeli Pharmaceutical Association’s Shafira said the company plans to introduce the drug in the next two years.