Cell Therapeutics announces new preclinical data

Cell Therapeutics (CTI) and its subsidiary Systems Medicine have announced new preclinical data for several of its drug candidates at the AACR-NCI-EORTC Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics in San Francisco.

Drug candidates presented included a new class of thienopyrimidine Src inhibitors which demonstrated potent growth suppression of imatinib resistant Ba/F3 cells harbouring a wide range of BCR-ABL mutations.

The antitumor activity of brostallicin on human prostatic cancer was also reported with the study looking at the role of its combination with hypomethylating agents.

In particular, data showed that brostallicin, when combined with hypomethylating agents such as zebularine, had the ability to convert resistant tumours into tumours sensitive to brostallicin

Commenting on the wide range of presentations, Jack W Singer, chief medical officer of CTI, described how the preclinical data was critical to the company’s goal of highly focused clinical development strategy.

“These studies show potential progress towards identifying specific tumour types with a higher likelihood of demonstrating response to anti-cancer compounds early in clinical development.”

Earlier this week CTI confirmed that the first patients had been enrolled for the Phase Ib trial of brostallicin, used in combination with either bevacizumab or irinotecan, for patients with advanced solid tumours.