Davanat & 5FU

I thought I’d post a little more information on Davanat so that you will have enough information to talk with your oncologists and also talk with those who are running the clinical trials.

Davanat is a proprietary complex carbohydrate compound
manufactured by a private biotech pharmaceutical company that
wants to obtain fast track approval from the FDA as a therapeutic adjuvant for the treatment of solid cancers. This is why they are looking to conduct a Phase 2 trial on cholangiocarcinoma, which is considered to be an orphan cancer. Davanat, itself, does not appear to have any direct chemotherapeutic effects, but rather is claimed to serve as a type of carrier molecule that is supposed to direct agents like 5’FU and other cancer chemotherapeutics to the tumor cell. As part of their marketing strategy, the company uses a trademark term,the Carbosome, to characterize their agent’s function. This is an obscure and purely descriptive term that presently has little value. The data presented to date on Davanat is quite preliminary and this agent has not yet been subjected to a rigorous peer review that would transcend the company’s claims with highly objective scientific evaluation to strongly justify clinical usage, particularly against difficult to treat advanced cancers like cholangiocarcinoma. The data for Davanat are far too preliminary to make any recommendations for or against its use.

But, I think we will all be keeping an eye on this one. If anyone finds additional data feel free to post it here so we can look it over.