On February 8, 2021 Moleculin Biotech, Inc., (Nasdaq: MBRX) (Moleculin or the Company), a clinical stage pharmaceutical company with a broad portfolio of drug candidates targeting highly resistant tumors and viruses, reported that the Agencja Badań Medycznych (The Medical Research Agency) a Polish state agency responsible for development of scientific research in the field of medical and health sciences, awarded a grant equivalent to $1.5 million USD to the Maria Sklodowska-Curie National Research Institute to fund a Phase 1B/2 clinical trial of Annamycin for the treatment of soft tissue sarcoma (STS) lung metastases (Press release, Moleculin, FEB 8, 2021, View Source [SID1234574727]). The grant-funded clinical trial will be led by Prof. Piotr Rutkowski, MD, PhD, Head of Department of Soft Tissue/Bone Sarcoma and Melanoma at the Maria Sklodowska-Curie National Research Institute of Oncology in Warsaw, Poland.
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Prof. Piotr Rutkowski will be assisted in part, by WPD Pharmaceuticals in Poland, a licensee of Annamycin, who will provide support in preparation for and conduct of the clinical trial, which is expected to begin this year. As a part of the collaboration between Moleculin and Prof. Rutkowski, Moleculin will be supplying the drug product necessary for the clinical trial, but Moleculin will not participate in conducting the clinical trial. This trial is independent from and will be in addition to the US clinical trial Moleculin is planning to conduct with Annamycin in sarcoma lung metastases.
"There is a significant unmet need for improved treatments for patients with sarcoma lung metastases," commented Prof. Piotr Rutkowski of Maria Sklodowska-Curie National Research Institute of Oncology, "so we are excited to begin this trial. Although this is considered a rare disease, there are no other clinical trials of this kind currently active in Poland, so it’s a tremendous opportunity for our patients."
"Prof. Rutkowski’s trial is a key element in a collaboration between teams in the US and Poland," added Walter Klemp, Chairman and CEO of Moleculin. "We are hopeful that data from the US and Poland can be combined to identify the potential for Annamycin to treat lung metastases."
Soft tissue sarcomas are the most common form of sarcoma, accounting for an estimated 130,000 incident cases per year worldwide. While many sarcomas can be addressed through surgical removal, it is estimated that as many 20% to 50% of STS sarcomas will eventually metastasize to the lungs, where treatment can become more challenging.
Once metastasized to the lungs, if tumors cannot be surgically removed, the primary chemotherapy regimen is the anthracycline doxorubicin (also known as Adriamycin). While 10% to 30% of patients with sarcoma lung metastases may initially respond to doxorubicin, most will relapse leaving the majority of these patients without an alternative chemotherapy. Treatment options are further limited because of the inherent cardiotoxicity of currently approved anthracyclines, including doxorubicin, which limits the amount of anthracycline that can be given to patients.
Annamycin is a "next generation" anthracycline that has recently been shown in animal models to accumulate in the lungs at up to 34 times the level of doxorubicin. Importantly, Annamycin has also demonstrated a lack of cardiotoxicity in recently conducted human clinical trials for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia, so the use of Annamycin may not face the same dose limitations imposed on doxorubicin.