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Biotech company, Kazia Therapeutics will be using its drug GDC-0084 in an American brain cancer study- Conducted in
joint effort with Harvard Medicine Assistant Professor Priscilla Brastianos and cancer research network Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology Foundation, funded by the National Cancer Institute - Kazia will fund a portion of trial costs for up to 150 trial patients
Australian oncology biotech company Kazia Therapeutics has announced today plans for a multi-centre study in brain cancer therapies.
The company will be utilising its new drug, GDC-0084, in a collaboration with US based cancer research network Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology Foundation, funded by the National Cancer Institute.
The planned phase II clinical trials will target cancers which start in the brain or spread through metastases towards the brain.
Principal study Investigator Priscilla Brastianos says the study of Brain metastases is currently an unmet clinical need.
In the US alone, there are roughly 200,000 new cases of brain cancer metastases each year. Average survival of these cancer patients usually ranges from three to 27 months.
“We urgently need to find better treatment options for these patients [and we] hope this study will help us identify a new treatment paradigm,” said the Harvard Medicine Assistant Professor.
Kazia CEO James Garner says the research project will be ‘ground-breaking’.
“Patients will be allocated to treatment depending on their tumor’s individual genetic signature, and patients with a mutation affecting the PI3K pathway will be eligible to receive [the drug],” he said.
The study will recruit up to 150 patients. Garner says the intended approach is the future of cancer treatment.
“We are delighted that [our drug] has been selected and we are excited to see this study move forward” he added.
The study is expected to take place over two years, to begin in the second half of this year. Kazia Therapeutics will provide a financial grant for a portion of trial costs.
The study is still under condition of approval from the the Institutional Review Boards, which is pending.
Today’s news only prompted a marginal 1.12 per cent bump for the company in the market this morning. Shares remain at 45 cents each in a $27.66 market cap.
