Threshold releases preliminary study results of TH-302 in combination with Bevacizumab

Bevacizumab is a biologic antibody designed to interfere with the tumor blood supply by directly binding to a protein called VEGF and helps curing recurrent glioblastoma while TH-302 is a hypoxia-targeted drug designed to be activated under tumor hypoxic conditions.

During the study, the six patients showed worsening of disease within 128 days whereas the same patients treated with bevacizumab alone, had taken 89.5 days for the disease to progress.

Clinical study principal investigator Andrew Brenner said the early data from a small number of patients are providing first insight into combination of TH-302 with bevacizumab in treating patients with recurrent glioblastoma.

"Safe and effective treatment options for this particularly aggressive cancer are urgently needed, and we look forward to further evaluation of TH-302 as dose escalation in this study continues," Brenner added.

Preclinical data also suggests that antiangiogenic agents, such as bevacizumab may increase tumor hypoxia, to combine TH-302 to kill cells in hypoxic regions of the tumor.

As part of the study, patients scheduled for debulking craniotomy are being enrolled to treat with a single dose of TH-302 (575 mg/m2)or placebo prior to surgery, followed by postoperativecombination therapy of bevacizumab (10 mg/m2 every two weeks) and TH-302 dose-escalated 240-480 mg/m2 every 2 weeks (4 week cycle) until disease progression.

Threshold chief executive officer Barry Selick said, "We believe TH-302 has the potential to be complementary to targeted cancer therapies, and we will continue to evaluate its safety and efficacy in combination with a variety of antiangiogenic agents in different tumor types."