Allos Therapeutics reports encouraging data from cancer trial

Allos Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company, has reported new data demonstrating the anticancer activity of its investigational drug, pralatrexate, in colon, ovarian, lung, prostate, and head and neck cancer cell lines.

The preclinical research further showed that the antiproliferative effects against these cancer lines were achieved at drug concentrations that are attainable in humans.

The results demonstrate anticancer activity of pralatrexate in nine of 15 human cell lines tested. Importantly, it appears from analyses of exposure time that the effect of pralatrexate is reached rapidly, within 24-72 hours. During this window, cancer cells susceptible to pralatrexate undergo apoptosis, or cell death, the company said.

Further analysis of the data demonstrated a potential correlation between the sensitivity to pralatrexate and the expression level of folyl-polyglutamate synthetase (FPGS), an enzyme that catalyzes the addition of polyglutamate tails to folate derivatives such as pralatrexate. Although further study is required, FPGS may prove to be an important biomarker to predict cancer patients sensitivities to pralatrexate, the company added.

Pablo Cagnoni, chief medical officer of Allos Therapeutics, said: The broad anticancer activity demonstrated by pralatrexate in this in vitro study, combined with the results from prior exploratory non-small cell lung cancer clinical trials, support our view that the therapeutic potential of pralatrexate extends beyond hematological malignancies and merits further study in various types of solid tumors. We are currently evaluating pralatrexate in solid tumor indications, including non-small cell lung cancer and bladder cancer.