Data presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting in California showed that Tarvacin could be used to deliver a radioactive arsenic compound to prostate cancer blood vessels for tumor imaging. An earlier presentation at the AACR meeting had shown the potential of Tarvacin for the treatment of prostate cancer.
Peregrine said that it expects to begin patient enrollment in a Tarvacin phase I clinical trial for the treatment of cancer before the end of May.
“These imaging data indicate another potential utility for Tarvacin and other agents that fall under our anti-phospholipid therapy technology platform,” said Steven King, president and CEO of Peregrine Pharmaceuticals. “We will continue to explore additional ways to fully utilize this technology platform for the treatment and therapy of cancer and other diseases.”
As well as this anticancer activity, Tarvacin has also recently been shown to have impressive anti-viral activity and has been evaluated in ocular disease.