AVRX 3.26 AVN944 Biomarkers Correlate with Clinical Effects and Disease Stabilization in Adult AML Patients
December 8, 2007 - 5:30 PM EST
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Avalon Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq:AVRX), today announced preliminary results from its ongoing AVN944 Phase I trial in adult Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML) patients at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting.
The research shows that AVN944 is well tolerated in refractory AML patients, with drug exposure increasing with higher dose levels. AVN944 biomarkers show a dose-dependent increase in activity including: binding to the target enzyme IMPDH, depletion of GTP pools in blast cells, and gene expression markers correlating to cell cycle blocks, GTP level and apoptosis, illustrating that biomarkers can be used to monitor exposure in patients as dose levels increase.
Utilizing the AvalonRx® platform, a predictive algorithm was developed and the preliminary data discriminates AVN944’s effect on patients with regard to disease stabilization or progression. This biomarker based patient stratification strategy could provide a valuable tool for enrichment of patients more likely to benefit from AVN944 therapy in future studies.
“Reducing the risk of clinical trials failures has been a very elusive goal in the development of cancer therapeutics,” stated Rebecca B. Klisovic, M.D., Assistant Professor of Hematology and Oncology at The Ohio State University. “These preliminary results are very exciting and Avalon’s comprehensive biomarker driven approach, if confirmed in a larger study, would go a long way toward achieving this goal.”
About Avalon Pharmaceuticals
Avalon is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of first-in-class cancer therapeutics. Avalon’s lead product candidate, AVN944, an IMPDH inhibitor, is in Phase II clinical development. Avalon also has preclinical programs to develop inhibitors of the Beta-catenin and Aurora/Centrosome pathways, discovery programs for inhibitors of the Survivin and Myc pathways and partnerships with Merck, MedImmune, ChemDiv, Medarex, and Novartis. AvalonRx® is the company’s proprietary platform which is based on large-scale biomarker identification and monitoring, used to discover and develop therapeutics for pathways that have historically been characterized as "undruggable." Avalon is headquartered in Germantown, MD.
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