On March 30, 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 U.S. Food and Drug Administration ("FDA") has approved its request for Fast Track Designation for its drug, Annamycin, for the treatment of soft tissue sarcoma (STS) lung metastases (Press release, Moleculin, MAR 30, 2021, View Source [SID1234577330]).
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"We are pleased to receive our second Fast Track Designation from the FDA for Annamycin. We now have potential pathways for accelerated approval in two indications, STS lung metastases, and the treatment of relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia," commented Walter Klemp, Moleculin’s Chairman and CEO. "Not only does this make us eligible for accelerated approval and priority review for our NDA submission, but it serves as an important reminder of the unmet need in STS lung metastases. We are now focused on initiating our internally funded clinical trial in the US, possibly prior to mid-year. In addition, we recently announced a $1.5 million grant awarded in Poland for an investigator initiated clinical trial there for this indication which should start later this year."
A drug that receives Fast Track designation is eligible for some or all of the following:
More frequent meetings with FDA to discuss the drug’s development plan and ensure collection of appropriate data needed to support drug approval
More frequent written communication from FDA about such things as the design of the proposed clinical trials and use of biomarkers
Eligibility for Accelerated Approval and Priority Review, if relevant criteria are met
Rolling Review, which means that a drug company can submit completed sections of its Biologic License Application (BLA) or New Drug Application (NDA) for review by FDA, rather than waiting until every section of the NDA is completed before the entire application can be reviewed. BLA or NDA review usually does not begin until the drug company has submitted the entire application to the FDA
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 30-fold 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 we believe that the use of Annamycin may not face the same usage limitations imposed on doxorubicin.