DelMar Pharmaceuticals receives funding from Canadian Federal Government

The research funded by this award will be conducted in collaboration with the University of British Columbia, the Vancouver Prostate Centre and the B.C. Cancer Agency. This funding represents the fourth contribution that DelMar has received from NRC-IRAP, bringing the total to CDN$327,000 in financial support to date.

"We are pleased to receive advisory services and technological expertise along with funding support from NRC-IRAP and appreciate Canada’s ongoing commitment to support growing companies like DelMar Pharmaceuticals," said Jeffrey Bacha, president & CEO.

"This funding will support personnel and research costs and enable us to accelerate and broaden non-clinical research aimed at further establishing the competitive differentiation of our lead product candidate, VAL-083, as a potential chemotherapy for the treatment of glioblastoma multiforme and non-small cell lung cancer."

VAL-083 represents a first-in-class, small-molecule chemotherapeutic with a unique mechanism of action. In more than 40 Phase I and II clinical studies sponsored by the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI), VAL-083 demonstrated promising activity against a number of cancers including lung, brain, cervical, ovarian tumors and leukemia.

VAL-083 is approved in China for the treatment of chronic myelogenous leukemia and lung cancer and has received orphan drug designation in Europe and the United States for the treatment of gliomas.

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most common and most malignant form of brain cancer. Approximately 15,000 people are diagnosed with glioblastoma each year in the United States, with similar incidence in Europe. Standard of care is surgery, followed by radiation therapy or combined radiation therapy and chemotherapy with temozolomide.

DelMar is currently conducting an open-label, single arm dose-escalation Phase I/II human clinical trial in the United States designed to evaluate the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics and anti-tumor activity of VAL-083 in patients with recurrent GBM. Interim data from this trial was recently presented at the 50th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO).

The clinical trial is currently enrolling at three clinical sites in the United States: The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), The Sarah Cannon Research Institute (SCRI) in Nashville, Tenn., and the SCRI affiliate site at the Florida Cancer Specialists in Sarasota, Fla.

VAL-083 is currently approved as a chemotherapy for the treatment of lung cancer in the People’s Republic of China but not widely used.