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Additional Information

Market:	ASX
Sector:	Pharma & Biotech
EPIC:	SRX
Latest Price:	4.86 (2.32% )
52-week High:	5.72
52-week Low:	4.10
Market Cap:	271.03M

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Sirtex Medical Limited

Sirtex Medical (ASX: SRX) is an Australia-based biotechnology and medical device company. The company is focused on production and marketing of SIR-Spheres technology for the treatment of liver cancer. Second focus is on research to enhance the SIR technology and potentially use it in other forms of cancer.

Sirtex Medical & Oxford University to test new bowel cancer therapy

Monday, March 01, 2010

Oncology-focussed treatment company Sirtex Medical (ASX: SRX) today announced the start of a new trial to see if chemotherapy used with SIR-Spheres® microspheres targeted radiation therapy, is more effective than just chemotherapy in patients with bowel cancer that has spread to the liver.

The trial, called FOXFIRE, will be led by Dr Ricky Sharma from Oxford University’s Gray Institute for Radiation Oncology and Biology and Dr Harpreet Wasan from London’s Hammersmith Hospital.

Chief Executive Officer of Sirtex Medical, Gilman Wong said the new study was another milestone in the rapid evolution of Sirtex's global clinical program to gather data that demonstrate and prove the efficacy of SIR-Spheres microspheres as an effective therapy to treat liver cancer.

MrWong said, “We are delighted to be supporting the University of Oxford in the conduct of leading edge, independent research that has as its goal the improvement of cancer patients’ treatment options."

"We expect the results of the study will establish a new standard of care for patients who currently have limited treatment options available," he said.

Dr Sharma and Dr Wasan say they hope the randomised controlled study involving 490 patients at 24 hospitals across the UK will help show if Sirtex Medical’s SIR-Spheres microspheres combined with chemotherapy can give patients better medical outcomes than current treatments.

Dr Sharma said “What is exciting about this new technique is that we know that radiotherapy works well in treating bowel cancer and this new way of administering high-dose radiation therapy directly into the blood supply of the cancer appears to be effective when we combine it with chemotherapy.

Bowel cancer is the third most common cancer in the UK with 38,000 people diagnosed each year. About 50 per cent of patients experience spread of the disease to the liver and most patients cannot be cured by surgery.

The study is funded in partnership with Cancer Research UK, the Bobby Moore Fund for Cancer Research and Sirtex Medical Limited.

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