This follows a similar approval for a phase I/II trial for ZIO-201 in patients with advanced sarcoma. Patient treatment in both trials is expected to start in early 2006 at leading cancer centers in the US, Canada, and UK.
These phase I/II trials build from the company’s stated strategy of taking products that have shown activity in human cancer and re-engineering them for enhanced safety, improved efficacy, and expedited clinical development.
Ziopharm believes that ZIO-101 has the potential to treat patients with myeloma at significantly higher doses compared to arsenic trioxide, an inorganic arsenic currently approved to treat acute promyelogenous leukemia (APL), which has also shown activity in myeloma.