The primary objective of the company’s Phase I trial with ARQ 621 is to determine its safety, tolerability and recommended Phase II dose. Patients with metastatic solid tumors who are refractory to available therapies or for whom no standard systemic therapy exists will be enrolled.
The number of patients to be enrolled will depend on the number of patient cohorts investigated until dose-limiting toxicity is reached.
Thomas Chan, chief scientific officer of ArQule, said: “We believe ARQ 621 holds promise as a broad-spectrum, anticancer agent with an improved safety profile over the first generation of Eg5 inhibitors. Eg5 plays a significant role in cell division and in the severe mitotic abnormalities often seen in cancer cells but not in normal cells.”