Prescient Therapeutics (ASX:PTX) has received the Investigational New Drug (IND) for its novel drug candidate PTX-200 in a Phase 1b/2 trial for the treatment of metastatic ovarian cancer.
The IND was previously held by an Investigator at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Florida.
A Phase 1b/2 trial of the compound in combination with current standard of care is already underway in patients with recurrent or persistent platinum resistant ovarian cancer at the Center, which is one of the largest cancer centres in the U.S.
Six patients have now been enrolled to take part in the trial, which is examining TCN-P in combination with standard of care therapy cisplatin.
This trial was previously funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Defense.
In addition, Prescient is planning a Phase 1b/2 trial evaluating PTX-200 as a new therapy for acute myeloid leukemia in late 2015.
Early studies suggest that the PTX-200 compound, which targets a key tumour survival pathway known as AKT, may help to minimise the problem of chemotherapy resistance – a major problem in the treatment of ovarian cancer globally and linked to extremely poor survival rates.
Ovarian cancer is the fifth leading cause of cancer deaths in women in the U.S.
Approximately half of those diagnosed will die from metastatic disease as current treatments make little substantive impact on cure rates for the disease.
Chemotherapy has been a general standard of care, typically consisting of platins, a group of platinum-based drugs. However, ovarian cancer often recurs, presenting as platinum-resistant.
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