The Spanish company Pharmamar explores the depths of the oceans in search of marine products for the treatment of cancer. Their first success, a drug for the treatment of soft tissue sarcomas, has just got European-wide approval.
The oceans hold 34 of the 36 phyla of life, some of them (i.e. Ctenophora, Echinodermata, Porifera, Phoronidea, Brachiopoda and Chaetognata) are restricted to the oceans. In addition, due to the special ecological conditions they have to cope with, marine organisms display multiple exclusive physiological processes and a complete collection of biochemical novelties.
In 1986 Spain was joining the European Union and Jose María Fernández decided that his company would require some original and innovative projects to face this new and challenging scenario. He was a biochemist with some previous experience in biotechnology. This was the background that led him to create Pharmamar, a biotech company aimed at the discovery and development of novel marine-derived drugs for the treatment. Last July, Pharmamar got its first important success. At last, its leading drug Yondelis got approval from the European Agency of cancer. Yondelis is an isoquinolone alkaloid originally isolated from the Caribbean colonial tunicate Ecteinascidia turbinata. Its approval is a milestone in the history of this company and the first serious reward for 20 years of work, €400 million of investment and not a single euro of revenue yet. Hopefully, it also opens the gate to further future development.
Today many other companies and research institutes around the world are exploring the pharmacological potential of the sea. Hundreds of new marine therapeutic entities are described every year and there are even some specialized journals periodically publishing findings in this field.
Read more by saving the pdfs of pages 50, 51 and 52 from the Lab Times article,
‘20,000 Leagues under the Sea.’
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.
Stop high seas bottom trawling ! Sea beds are less explored than Mars . They are threatened by the highly unsustainable practise of bottom trawling:
“Deep-sea coral and sponge communities are largely untapped sources of natural products with enormous potential as pharmaceuticals, enzymes, pesticides, cosmetics, and other commercial products, for example:
Gorgonian corals produce antibiotics;
compounds found in certain deep-sea sponges are potent immunosuppressive and anti-cancer agents;
some coral species contain the pain-killing compounds known as pseudopterosians;
seafans contain high concentrations of prostaglandins (compounds used to treat asthma and heart disease). ”