Potential of Anisina to Become Major New Chemotherapy Confirmed by Coda Study
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SYDNEY, March 18, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Novogen announced on 18(th) March, 2015 that one of its oncology pipeline drug candidates, Anisina (ATM-3507), has achieved a major milestone in its development, confirming the concept that comprehensive destruction of a cancer cell's cytoskeleton can deliver a powerful anti-cancer effect.
Dr Kelly was interviewed by Channel 7 health reporter, Dr Andrew Rochford about Anisina's potential. To view the interview click here... or visit the Novogen website.
The cytoskeleton (cell skeletal structure) is a common and validated target for anti-cancer therapy. The most commonly used drugs in chemotherapy target the cytoskeleton by destabilising one of its two key components, the microtubules. These drugs are known as 'anti-mitotics' and include the taxanes (paclitaxel, docetaxel) and the vinca alkaloids (vincristine, vinblastine). Collectively, these anti-mitotics have dominated chemotherapy for the past 30 years and look set to do so for many years to come.
The rationale behind the development of Anisina was that the anti-mitotic drugs only do half the job, because they leave the other major component of the cytoskeleton, the microfilaments, intact. It was reasoned that this half-complete destruction of the cytoskeleton by the anti-mitotic drugs accounted for their low rate of patient response for many tumor types and for the generally short-term response to therapy. Anisina was developed specifically to destroy the microfilaments and to work in combination with the anti-mitotic drugs to deliver comprehensive destruction of the cancer cell's architecture.
Anisina targets a specific protein known as tropomyosin Tpm3.1 (previously known as Tm5NM1). Tpm3.1 is a protein that provides structural integrity to the microfilaments of a cell. It is present in both normal cells and cancer cells, the difference being that cancer cells have an increased reliance on this form of tropomyosin to survive.
It has been announced previously that anti-tropomyosin drugs in combination with anti-mitotic drugs boost the cancer-killing ability of a drug such as vincristine 20-fold in vitro against neuroblastoma cancer cells.
The next crucial step was to confirm that this powerful combined anti-cancer effect was transferable to animals. The study reported today confirms this.
This proof of concept study was done as part of the Children's Oncology Drug Alliance (CODA) involving Australian charity, The Kids' Cancer Project (Sydney), The University of New South Wales (Sydney), The Nationwide Children's Hospital (Columbus, Ohio), and Novogen. The studies were conducted using cancer cells derived from children who had developed neuroblastoma.
The full details of these studies will be presented at the Eighth Annual Cancer Molecular Therapeutics Research Association (CMTRA) meeting in the USA in July of this year.
Justine Stehn PhD, Novogen Anti-Tropomyosin Program Director, said, "This was the crucial step we needed to bring Anisina into the clinic. We now are proceeding to bring Anisina into the clinic in 2016 into both adults and children. In adults we will be looking to use Anisina to potentiate the anti-cancer effect of anti-mitotics in cancers such as prostate, ovarian, lung, breast, colorectal and haematological cancers, as well as in cancers such as melanoma where anti-mitotics currently show little benefit."
"But what particularly excites us from a CODA perspective is the promise that this technology holds in being able to achieve a potent anti-cancer effect in children where anti-mitotics currently are widely used, but being able to use lower dosages of anti-mitotics that hopefully will lower the risk of leaving children with side-effects with life-long consequences."
Graham Kelly PhD, Novogen CEO and Executive Chairman said, "From the outset, the anti-tropomyosin technology platform has held the promise of delivering a major new chemotherapy, one that we saw becoming a standard companion drug to the most commonly-used drugs in chemotherapy. Today's announcement just serves to reinforce that promise."
"The promise of Anisina is that it is not a drug limited to working in a proportion of patients with a particular form of cancer, or one that is reliant on the over-expression of certain functions such as immune checkpoints or pro-survival mechanisms. Its promise lies in its ability to make the most widely-used chemotherapy drugs work better and safer in more forms of cancer and in more patients. Our objective is to see Anisina become one of the most widely used drugs in chemotherapy
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