CytRx Provides Result Of Cancer Drug Candidate Trials

CytRx has provided the results demonstrating that its cancer drug candidate – INNO-206 caused significant tumor shrinkage in an animal model of ovarian cancer.

INNO-206, to be used as an effective treatment in a variety of cancer indications, including sarcomas, breast cancer, pancreatic cancer and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

In the animal study, ten million human A2780 ovarian tumor cells from cell culture were transplanted under the skin in the left flank region of 18 mice, with their immune systems compromised to allow tumor cell growth.

Reportedly, after ten days, the tumors reached a palpable size and the experimental animals were then randomized into three groups for administration of two cycles of weekly intravenous injections (with a previously optimized dose of doxorubicin or CytRx’s INNO-206, or received an intravenous injection lacking either drug to serve as a control). Tumor growth was monitored continuously for 12 days following initiation of treatment.

The company observed a significant decrease in the rate of tumor growth compared to the control in the doxorubicin treated group, with tumors increasing in volume by only four-to-five-fold during treatment.

Joseph Rubinfeld, chief scientific advisor, co-founder of Amgen and oncology expert of CytRx, said: Doxorubicin itself is known to be effective in treating recurrent ovarian cancer in humans so we were not surprised to see its efficacy in this animal model of ovarian cancer.

However, the remarkable and statistically significant superiority of INNO-206 compared to this gold standard chemotherapeutic drug in the same experiment increases our confidence that its tumor-targeting mechanism could be key in effectively treating a variety of cancers that respond to drugs like doxorubicin, he added.