Scientists said Tuesday they have overcome the major hurdle to synthesizing taxol, a potent but scarce natural anticancer drug now extracted from the Pacific yew tree, and predicted they could make taxol in the laboratory by the end of the year.
The growing demand for taxol for cancer research has triggered concerns that harvesting yews in the forests of Oregon and Washington would endanger the tree`s existence or encroach on the habitat of the threatened Northern spotted owl. Moreover, harvest of the yew has been yielding too little taxol to treat the tens of thousands of patients who might benefit from it-particularly those suffering from advanced ovarian and breast cancer.
A Stanford University chemist said that his research group has found a
”uniquely short way” of manufacturing taxol from a common substance ”not much more expensive than potting soil.”
Paul Wender, a professor of chemistry at Stanford, said he would not name the substance. ”I wouldn`t want to generate false expectations” among potential patients, Wender added. ”We do not have the synthesis in hand at this point, but we feel we could have it by the end of the year.”
Wender said it remains to be shown that the method is practical for large-scale production at reasonable prices, but he believed that it would.
Matthew Suffness of the National Cancer Institute said Wender`s achievement, which another NCI official disclosed at a cancer meeting in Amsterdam, ”is exciting, and I think it has long-term potential for being commercially feasible.”
It was encouraging news for cancer researchers and patients who have been frustrated because the only current source of taxol is the Pacific yew. Because of the supply squeeze, taxol has been given only to relatively small groups of cancer patients. In advanced ovarian cancer, which kills 12,000 women every year, the drug shrank tumors significantly better than standard treatments. Late last year, researchers said taxol showed promise in breast cancer too.
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Suffness said several research groups racing to synthesize the extraordinarily complex taxol molecule have found a way to create it in the laboratory, but ”I think Wender`s synthesis is going to be a lot shorter than anybody else`s” and should be practical because the raw material is so cheap. Wender is scheduled to make an official report on the work at the American Chemical Society meeting next month.