Australian biotechnology company Prescient Therapeutics will expand testing of its PTX-200 drug after another patient suffering a deadly blood cancer, relapsed and refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML), experienced a complete remission.

The patient – part of Prescient’s Phase 1b trials – was receiving a 45 mg/m2 dosage of PTX-200 and cytarabine (a chemotherapy drug regularly used to treat AML) and recorded complete remission, though some blood cell types were yet to return to their normal levels.

This is the fourth patient to experience a full remission after being treated with the drug at this dosage, with another patient who received 35 mg/m2 doses experiencing a reduction in their cancer burden (considered a ‘partial response’).

“It’s very satisfying to see another patient with remission in a disease that is so aggressive and fatal,” Prescient CEO Steven Yatomi Clarke said.

“Despite recent advancements AML remains a disease of unmet medical need, and we look forward to advancing this study with the aim of benefitting more AML patients.”

The results pave the way for Prescient to expand its Phase 1b trial cohort by three patients, each at 45 mg/m2 to advance its understanding of safety and efficacy of the drug at this dosage.

Professor Jeffrey Lancet, chair of the department of malignant hematology at Florida’s H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and principal investigator in the PTX200 trials, said it was encouraging to see another complete response.

“It was also pleasing to see that this dose level was well tolerated by patients, with no reported dose-limiting toxicities,” he added.

“It is believed that 45 mg/m2 may be a biologically effective dose of PTX-200, therefore we will recruit an additional three patients at this dose level to further investigate dose safety and efficacy in this fragile patient population.”

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Sources:

• Prescient Therapeutics ASX Announcements,  Re-release of ASX Announcement dated 9 May 2022
• Chemocare.com, Cytarabine