BioCis Pharma Starts a Phase I Clinical Trial With a New Cancer Drug
privately-held drug development company with its headquarters in
Finland
instillation solution, a novel anti-cancer drug for urinary bladder cancer.
ProtoCure is based on a new mechanism of action discovered and developed by
BioCis Pharma which effectively prevents cancer growth and proliferation
locally.
The open-label, dose-escalating study is designed to evaluate the safety,
tolerability and pharmacokinetics of the locally administered (into the
bladder) product in a total of 22 patients with primary or recurrent
non-muscle invasive bladder cancer and it is expected to be well tolerated.
“We are pleased to advance to clinical testing with the ProtoCure
instillation solution,” says
first oncology product to reach this important milestone and follows the
initiation of two phase 2a studies with our leading anti-inflammatory product
in patients with inflammatory skin disorders that we recently announced. The
ProtoCure cancer drug holds great promise for patients suffering from
superficial bladder cancer. We are committed to take the product quickly to
more extensive clinical efficacy testing after this preliminary safety study.
We expect to get results from this study by the first quarter of 2010.”
Bladder cancer is the fourth most common cancer in men and tenth among
women. In addition, the recurrence rate is high, being almost 70 % in
patients with the non-invasive form of the cancer, where the malignancy is
typically found in the surface layers of the bladder. Non-invasive bladder
cancer is treated by urologists using local surgery and intravesical drug
therapy administered directly into the bladder. Existing drug therapies often
have undesirable side effects and limited efficacy.
BioCis Pharma Ltd is an innovative drug development company developing
drug therapies based on a novel, patented therapeutic principles that target
unmet medical needs in substantial therapeutic markets including
inflammation, allergy, and cancer. The company’s main investors are
Karolinska Development AB (publ.), Finnish Industry Investment Ltd., and Etra
Invest Oy.
Contacts:
Dr.
lasse.leino@biocis.com
SOURCE BioCis Pharma Ltd