The expansion of the study to the US builds upon Immix’ results from Australia, wherein six cohorts were dosed with no treatment-related serious adverse events observed and dose escalation is continuing.
The first US patient was dosed at Sarcoma Oncology Research Center in Santa Monica, California – led by Dr. Sant Chawla, a world renowned expert in sarcoma treatment and clinical research.
Based on his extensive experience with anthracycline-based experimental therapies for sarcoma, including CytRx’ Aldoxorubicin, Dr. Chawla shared his optimism for Imx-110 as an investigational candidate both from the standpoint of superior efficacy and a lower risk of cardiac complications associated with older formulations of doxorubicin. Dr. Chawla’s colleague, Dr. Erlinda Gordon is the Principal Investigator leading the study at Sarcoma Oncology Research Center in Santa Monica.
Dr. Gordon is a Diplomate of the American Board of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology and previously a Tenured Associate Professor for 24 years at USC and currently a Professor Emeritus at the USC Keck School of Medicine, Los Angeles, California.
She is a co-inventor of more than 150 patents in biomedical research, and patented the first targeted gene delivery system for cancer in the USA, Europe and the Philippines. She has authored more than 100 original peer-reviewed articles and served as Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology, Director of the Red Cell Defects Program and the NIH-funded Comprehensive Hemophilia Center at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles and the NIH-funded Children’s Oncology Group. Dr. Gordon was co-founder of two biotechnology companies and is a pioneer in the development of targeted gene therapy products.
Imx-110 is a first-in-class combination therapy designed to inhibit cancer resistance and evolvability while inducing apoptosis. Imx-110 contains NF-kB/Stat3/pan-kinase inhibitor curcumin combined with a small amount of doxorubicin encased in a nano-sized delivery system for optimal tumor penetration.
The nanoparticle is tunable in that it can be bound to various targeting moieties, allowing it to deliver even more payload to tumors or other cell populations of interest, if needed. Imx-110 showed preclinical efficacy in glioblastoma, multiple myeloma, triple-negative breast, colorectal, ovarian, and pancreatic tumor models — with the mechanism of action being a 5x increase in cancer cell apoptosis compared to doxorubicin alone, and a wholesale shift in the tumor microenvironment post administration.
Source: Company Press Release