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Anktiva - The Next Best Thing?
Folks, we are all looking for the next best thing to battle our prostate cancer. Perhaps some of you watched the News Nation Special: "Killing Cancer" on November 25, 2025. This was a one hour program featuring Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, a researcher who has his own clinic where he treats cancer patients who have run out of standard treatment options. The program offered testimony from a number of individuals who have had their cancer cured, or at least were in long term remission. It should be noted that different types of cancer were treated. During the show there was a live demonstration shown on a video screen displaying Dr. Soon-Shiong's treatment utilizing Anktiva seeking out and destroying breast cancer cells in real time.
What is Anktiva? Simply put, Dr. Soon-Shiong takes a person's Natural Killer (NK) cells that are part of our immunity system, super charges them (that part is not clear to me), and unleashes them back into the patient where the NK cells seek out any cancer cells and kills them.
Dr. Soon-Shiong stated how frustrated he is because the FDA has been very slow to approve his Anktiva for more clinical trials. At this time, Anktiva has only been approved to treat bladder cancer.
The cancer center that treats my prostate cancer was unaware of any clinical trials with Anktiva (also known as N-803). On a whim, I sent an e-mail to the Prostate Cancer Foundation to inquire about clinical trials for prostate cancer, and to my surprise I received a reply the very next day. There was a clinical trial (NCT03493945) completed in 2024 that used Anktiva in combination with other immunotherapy drugs. There is another clinical trial (NCT06765954) for men with high risk prostate cancer that is not yet recruiting.
Will Anktiva (N-803) turn out to be a cure for prostate cancer, or at least the safest and best immunotherapy option? Don't know, but I sure hope so! Some of you fellows that are part of the Mayo Clinic Prostate Cancer Support Group are very skilled at researching cancer clinical trials and studies. I implore you to provide any updates to our support group that you can find that pertains to Anktiva's (N-803) current clinical trials as well as future ones.
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Pretty easy to find; current trials being done for long Covid and lung cancer, which, by the way, combines it with docetaxel, the most common chemotherapy drug for metastatic PCa.
Not a large leap to imagine that if this trial is successful, PCa might be next?
Checkpoint inhibitors, the class of drugs of to which Anktiva belongs, has had various success rates depending on the type of cancer; lately, many drugs have been used in combinations - older with newer, slash and burn types with immuno, etc…
Let’s hope they come up with something for PCa sooner rather than later! Good article…
Phil
Phil
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3 Reactions...There is an entrepreneur who off-shored an immunotherapy program that avoids FDA slow down lane. It charges about $120K. There is a harvesting of cells which are concentrated curated. Then they are re-inserted with added recognition by the cancer cells from a patented process. I believe they are in Cancun, Mexico. I have no personal knowledge or connection. They use dendritic cells somehow
https://immunocine.com/
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2 Reactions@thmssllvn There’s already a dendritic cell treatment which is FDA approved - Provenge - and available in the US.
Not really sure if Medicare and others cover it.
As of now it extends life an average of four months - hardly a cure, right? But there are those who do get years from treatment…
I think Immunocine in Cancun probably has a similar success profile and if you are desperate and have the $$, why not??
Reading the article you posted and others reminded me of the fact that cancer cells can learn to eat anything - glucose, lipids and even cellular waste products - to survive. Similarly, they learn to ‘disarm’ the dendritic cells, even the immuno enhanced ones, and render them useless.
If ever there was an entity possessing generative AI, it is definitely the cancer cell. It is truly something to marvel at, even though it is a relentless killer of so many of us…Good find.
Phil