Moleculin Announces New Data Shows Reversal of Tumor Activity in Animal Models

On December 19, 2019 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, reported the presentation of a poster entitled, "Liposomal annamycin inhibition of lung localized breast cancer," at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium held December 14 – 29, 2019 (Press release, Moleculin, DEC 19, 2019, View Source [SID1234552508]).

Schedule your 30 min Free 1stOncology Demo!
Discover why more than 1,500 members use 1stOncology™ to excel in:

Early/Late Stage Pipeline Development - Target Scouting - Clinical Biomarkers - Indication Selection & Expansion - BD&L Contacts - Conference Reports - Combinatorial Drug Settings - Companion Diagnostics - Drug Repositioning - First-in-class Analysis - Competitive Analysis - Deals & Licensing

                  Schedule Your 30 min Free Demo!

"We now have another round of new key findings that we believe support the potential expansion of Annamycin to indications beyond acute leukemia," commented Walter Klemp, Chairman and CEO of Moleculin. "Our ongoing sponsored research at MD Anderson has now resulted in new patented discoveries that clearly demonstrate unusually high activity of Annamycin against lung metastatic cancers in animal models. This activity is a direct result of surprisingly high uptake of Annamycin by the lungs. The findings of experiments comparing organ distribution of Annamycin with doxorubicin are quite astonishing. We are seeing a 5 to 7-fold higher concentration of Annamycin in lungs than in plasma and at least 5-fold higher than that of doxorubicin. Doxorubicin, which is the current standard of care for treatment for frequently occurring lung metastases of such solid tumors as sarcoma, colorectal cancer, breast cancer and bladder cancer, is unfortunately not effective against such metastases, and consequently doxorubicin-based therapies fail the vast majority of such patients. Our research suggests that the surprisingly high activity of Annamycin in animal models of lung metastases may be, in part, due to the high level of accumulation of Annamycin in the lungs. We believe the tumor growth inhibition and even tumor regression observed with Annamycin might offer a new treatment option for patients with lung localized cancers. This notion is also supported by previously observed high activity of Annamycin against multidrug resistant tumors in animal models and its lack of cardiotoxicity thus far supported by both animal studies and clinical studies in humans."

"Importantly, the published poster, which can be found on our web site at View Source, shows substantially increased survival in both triple negative breast cancer and colon cancer lung metastases animal models," Mr. Klemp added. "It should also be noted that treatment with Annamycin resulted in long-term survival of a significant number of animals. We’re not just seeing a reduction in tumor growth, but often a reversal of tumor activity resulting in an almost complete reduction of tumor burden."

Mr. Klemp concluded, "We believe our research continues to support the view that Annamycin has market potential far beyond the treatment of acute leukemia as indicated by our ongoing US and European clinical trials. The absence of cardiotoxicity being demonstrated in those trials alone makes Annamycin a compelling candidate to potentially replace doxorubicin in a number of treatment settings. Furthermore, our new data, showing the ability of Annamycin to accumulate at disproportionately high levels in the lungs, suggests an opportunity to treat patients for whom the standard of care is ineffective. If this capability can be demonstrated in future human clinical trials, we believe Annamycin may be able to fill the existing void of effective chemotherapeutics for lung metastases and bring hope to a large population of patients in the USA and around the world, as the lungs are among the most common sites of cancer metastases."