NMT Pharmaceuticals inks licensing deal with CAO Pharma on anti-cancer drug CZ-48

NMT Pharma has completed due diligence of the CZ-48 drug for cancer treatment in major markets.

"This is a new milestone to expand our business from drug delivery and contract R&D service to having our own drug pipeline. We would like to bring this promising drug to every part of the world with our partners as pre-clinical data has showed that CZ-48 has low toxicity and efficacy with 22 different cancer cell lines," said David Sher, Managing Director of NMT Pharma.

CZ-48 is an analogue of camptothecin, a topoisomerase I inhibitor and prodrug which only becomes active when entering in tumor cells. "We believe that the new capsule formulation and orally administrated CZ-48 drug would have mild side effects with better therapeutic effects and patient compliance. We have successfully recruited our first patient of the Phase I clinical trial recently," said Zhisong Cao, PhD., President and CEO of CAO Pharma.

Beside the licensing agreement, NMT Pharma has also signed a research agreement and a stock purchase agreement with CAO Pharma. "We are glad that our partnership with NMT Pharma goes beyond CZ-48 drug. Our new shareholder will focus on marketing of CZ-48 drug and my team will manage clinical trial and new drug development programs," added Zhisong Cao.