Posted on 21st May 2009
Cancer Research UK is to fund its first patient trials, on a new anti-cancer drug owned by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).
Phase one of the trials, which will be carried out on around 30 to 40 patients with advanced tumours who have had all the treatment currently available, will be sponsored by Cancer Research Technology (CRT), a company owned by the charity.
Following early clinical development, GSK will have the option to commercialise and further develop the treatment in exchange for future payments to Cancer Research UK. If GSK chooses not to take the programme forward, the rights to the molecule will be given to CRT to secure an extra partner.
Dr Keith Blundy, chief executive of CRT, said that pharmaceutical companies always had to prioritise what they took into clinical development, “But even more so in the current economic climate.”
He said, “This deal with GSK demonstrates how Cancer Research UK and CRT can work with industry to speed up the development of anti-cancer drugs that might otherwise remain on companies’ shelves.”
CRT offers companies an alternative model to licensing out through the Clinical Development Partnerships (CPD) programme, which enables them to retain the rights to the new drug through the development process.
The programme was launched in 2006 to increase the number of new treatments for cancer patients by taking de-prioritised anti-cancer agents from industry and putting them into clinical trials.
GSK’s 1070916A, an aurora kinase inhibitor, is the third drug to enter the CPD programme but the first that is ready to be used on patients.
