Sydney-based Noxopharm (ASX:NOX) has updated on interim data from the DARRT-1 study where Veyonda is being tested in patients with prostate cancer which is late-stage, progressive and metastatic.
The company said the objective of DARRT-1 is for Veyonda to trigger a general immune response. This means achieving an anti-cancer response in the tumours in the body after delivering radiotherapy to just one or two individual tumours.
It added that the clinical objectives are greater pain relief, better quality of life, and longer survival in patients where palliative care is the current standard of care.
According to the company, the interim data indicates that the DARRT treatment regimen is "on track to achieve these objectives."
"Cancer progression was blocked in the majority (80%) of patients (8/10 evaluable patients) over the 6-month period of observation. Also at 6-months, over half of the patients continued to experience a clinically significant reduction (mean 73%) of their pain levels," it said.
”DARRT-1 is our first study in metastatic prostate cancer and the results so far are very encouraging. Considering that these patients were at the end of their treatment journey with no further treatment option available to them, it is impressive to see that the DARRT-1 treatment regimen was able to stabilise the disease progression in the majority of trial participants. Another important aspect of the DARRT-1 treatment regimen of low-dose radiotherapy plus Veyonda is the fact that it was very well tolerated with only minor and easily manageable side effects,” said Dr Gisela Mautner, Noxopharm chief medical officer.
Dr Graham Kelly, Noxopharm executive chairman, said, ”We are about 3-4 weeks away from seeing the 6-month data for the final 11 patients, but even before that, we are seeing an impressive anti-cancer effect from the DARRT therapy. For men who have run out of treatment options, this is a significant outcome. For the moment we are focusing on proving the concept of DARRT in prostate cancer, but we foresee this approach being applicable to wide range of cancers. This data helps confirm our belief that Veyonda is on track to become an important new drug in the management of cancer more generally.”