AGT merger partner's cancer drug results promising

Clinical results from AGT Bioscience's merger partner ChemGenex Therapeutics' Phase I/II trial of cancer drug Quinamed, released yesterday at ASCO in New Orleans and BIO in San Francisco, have shown promising anti-cancer activity, the company has claimed.

AGT said the trial -- in 32 patients with lung, ovarian, prostate, breast, colon and other solid tumours -- demonstrated promising anti-cancer activity in patients with prostate, ovarian and gastro-intestinal stromal tumours.

But the trial also had a personalised medicine component -- patients were tested prior to treatment to determine their metabolic response to the drug so that doses could be adjusted, according to whether they metabolised more quickly or more slowly. The researchers believe that matching the dose to the metabolic profile will reduce development of side-effects.

"This is the first example of how to use personalised medicine to characterise a patient's capacity for acetylation and dose accordingly," said AGT's CEO Dr Greg Collier.

The company is now enrolling additional patients with prostate, breast, ovarian or lung cancer for the Phase II component of the trial, which will continue to evaluate patient responses to the drug when dosed appropriately.

"This study clearly demonstrates the value that personalised medicine offers for the treatment of cancer, where there is a narrow window between an efficacious dose and one which produces side-effects that can limit a patient's treatment," said ChemGenex Therapeutics CEO Dr Dennis Brown.

AGT and ChemGenex announced their plans to merge to form the privately held, US-based ChemGenex Pharmaceuticals in April, and AGT shareholders will vote on the merger later this month. The new company will span drug target discovery and validation, drug discovery and development, and clinical development, with an emphasis on functional and chemical genomics.

"The basis is that genomics can underpin the whole drug development value chain," said Collier.