Sydney-based biotech firm Noxopharm Ltd (ASX:NOX, OTC:NOXOF) has released promising data from its Chroma™ platform at the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) Special Conference on Pancreatic Cancer in Boston.
Targeting pancreatic cancer
The latest findings focus on CRO-67, a novel dual-cell preclinical drug candidate designed to target pancreatic cancer.
The data were presented by long-term collaborator the University of NSW and indicated a significant reduction in tumour volume and a slower growth rate, substantiating previous research conducted in 2022.
These fresh results emanate from a study that involved implanting human pancreatic cancer cells into mice and treating them with CRO-67 for a period of 21 days.
This treatment led to a considerable reduction in tumour volume, averaging 56.7% compared to untreated controls (p=0.0013). The drug also decelerated the tumour growth rate by 48%, elongating the median doubling time to 8.5 days from 4.4 days in untreated controls.
Major development
This comes as a major development in combating a form of cancer that is notoriously hard to treat, due in part to a dense cellular barrier surrounding the tumours and a high level of genetic diversity among individual patients.
Earlier studies from UNSW Sydney demonstrated CRO-67's broad anti-cancer activity across a range of pancreatic cancer cell lines and its potent efficacy against barrier cells.
These current in vivo results not only confirm CRO-67's bioavailability and biological activity in animal models but also reinforce Noxopharm's confidence in the asset, which is taking centre stage in the company's ongoing development program.
Noxopharm CEO Dr Gisela Mautner said: “These results are encouraging because they demonstrate that CRO-67 is having a strong effect in different settings such as human cell lines and mice, as well as in patient explants.
“While we are also planning a further study to demonstrate efficacy in a different model, we are already moving ahead and developing the dosing and formulation for patients.
“All the studies we have performed are important elements to build out a robust data package that will be required for regulatory progression and validates our ongoing research as we explore the potential of CRO-67 to be further developed as a treatment for pancreatic cancer.
Urgent need
“The disease is set to become the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the US by 2040 and has a very poor five-year survival rate of about 9% from the time of diagnosis.
“Very few new treatments have been released over the past decades, meaning there is an urgent need to develop innovative drugs and therefore a major opportunity for Noxopharm to make a significant contribution in this space.”