Adjuvant prostate cancer drug begins mid-stage trials

This clinical trial, the first of four phase II studies planned for OGX-011 in 2005, is designed to assess the safety and efficacy of the drug in prostate cancer patients also receiving hormone ablation therapy to combat the disease.

OGX-011 is a targeted therapeutic that sensitizes tumours that are resistant to conventional cancer therapeutics, such as chemotherapy, hormone ablation therapy, and radiation therapy. OGX-011 targets the protein clusterin, a cell survival protein, that is increased in cancer cells in response to standard anti-cancer treatments, and undermines the effectiveness of standard anti-tumour therapies.

“Our recently completed phase I study demonstrated that OGX-011 prevents increases in clusterin expression induced by hormone ablation therapy,” said Dr Martin Gleave, chief scientific officer of OncoGenex, “In those studies, a once-weekly 640mg dose of OGX-011 produced a 90% down-regulation of clusterin expression in patient’s tumours.”