Nudoxa to treat cancers affecting breast, ovaries and Kaposi’s sarcoma in India

Nudoxa, a targeted chemotherapy drug used to treat various types of cancers including breast, ovarian and Kaposi’s sarcoma is now available in India.

Nudoxa is based on novel drug delivery system (NDDS) approach which enables the medicine to be targeted more directly to cancer affected parts of the body while leaving the healthy regions largely unharmed.

NDDS approach makes Nudoxa a powerful agent to destroy cancer cells with less side-effects compared to the conventional chemotherapy drugs which normally lead to a variety of unwanted and often intolerable adverse effects to the cancer patients.

The major indication of Nudoxa is for treating breast cancer. Breast cancer is of the second most common type of cancers affecting women.

Nudoxa is also used as a chemotherapy treatment of ovarian cancer – the fifth-leading cause of cancer death in women.

AIDS-related Kaposi sarcoma, which develops in people infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is another indication for Nudoxa.

Nudoxa is marketed in India by Zydus Biogen, a joint marketing venture between India’s Zydus Cadila and Biogen Idec.

Nudoxa is manufactured by Zydus-BSV Pharma Pvt Ltd, the joint venture company of Zydus Cadila and Bharat Serums and Vaccines Pvt Ltd.

Nudoxa contains doxorubicin in liposomal form. Doxirubicin is the first generation anti-cancer drug launched in 1960s. This DNA-interacting drug, however, was discovered to cause life-threatening side effects in the form of cardiac abnormalities.

An advancement on this therapy resulted in liposomal doxorubicin in which the molecules of the drug are encapsulated in a fatty coating known as liposomes.

The liposomes allow the doxorubicin lo be delivered specifically in greater amounts to the cancer cells, while having fewer side effects on the healthy tissues.

A further advancement in this line of treatment was the Pegylated-liposomal doxorubicin, a unique form of liposomal doxorubicin in which the liposomes are coated with polyethylene glycol, leading to a much longer half-life in the blood.
However Pegylated-liposomal doxorubicin are likely to cause ‘Hand-Foot Syndrome,’ characterized by skin eruptions on the palms of the hand or soles of the feet, leading lo interruption in therapy.