On June 28, 2023 Kintara Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: KTRA) ("Kintara" or the "Company"), a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of new solid tumor cancer therapies, reported that the Company has been awarded a $2.0 million Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support the clinical development of REM-001, a second-generation photodynamic therapy photosensitizer agent for the treatment of cutaneous metastatic breast cancer (CMBC) (Press release, Kintara Therapeutics, JUN 28, 2023, View Source [SID1234632964]).
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"We are delighted that the National Institutes of Health recognizes that Kintara’s REM-001 program shows an opportunity to address an unmet medical need by significantly improving the quality of life and reducing co-morbidities for patients with CMBC," said Robert E. Hoffman, President and CEO of Kintara. "The support from the NIH validates the potential of our program to help patients with metastatic breast cancer who have little or no treatment options for this devastating disease. We look forward to advancing our REM-001 program with this grant."
Funds from the NIH SBIR grant will enable Kintara to restart the REM-001 CMBC program and generate clinical evidence to demonstrate proof of concept for the photodynamic therapy platform in CMBC. Completion of this study is intended to aid in the design of a planned phase 3 registrational study.
A 2003 meta-analysis of over 20,000 cancer patients found that 24% of breast cancer patients included in the analysis had developed cutaneous metastases, which was the highest rate of any cancer type. According to the American Cancer Society’s estimates for 2021, it was projected that there would be approximately 281,550 new cases of invasive breast cancer diagnosed in women in the United States. Accordingly, the prevalence of CMBC may be in excess of 50,000 cases annually in the United States.