Hennessy’s Highlights – The Latest Oncology News from Mike Hennessy, Jr., President – OncLive.com
April 2019
Biotechnology company NED Biosystems is developing a novel therapeutic that integrates 7 compounds into a single orally administered treatment regimen for patients with late-stage cancer. The company, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has landed a patent from the US Patent and Trademark Office that it believes is the first issued to protect the composition of matter for a formulation containing this number of components.
The therapeutic, NED-170, consists of the FDA-approved chemotherapy drugs cyclophosphamide, metformin, and naltrexone combined with the naturally occurring compounds curcumin, melatonin, α-lipoic acid, and genistein. Investigators for NED Biosystems hypothesize that these 7 components, when combined in a regimen involving particular doses and timing, offer a new treatment option for patients with advanced cancers that progressed through standard therapy.
The patent, which will remain in force until at least 2034, includes claims to the unique combination of NED-170 components, providing protection to any NED-170 drug product or kit, as well as claims for its use in late-stage ovarian cancer. Specifically, the patent details an ovarian cancer regimen consisting of least 1 dose per day of metformin (range, 500-1000 mg), cyclophosphamide (50 mg), naltrexone (range, 1.5-4.5 mg), α-lipoic acid (1200 mg), curcumin (range, 750-4500 mg), genistein (500 mg), and melatonin (10 mg).
The combination regimen simultaneously targets essential physiological processes driving all latestage cancers, including angiogenesis, reduced apoptosis, differential cancer cell metabolism, and evasion of immune response, according to NED Biosystems.
“Patients who have exhausted standards of care have limited treatment options. They can go into phase I clinical trials, they can recycle chemotherapy drugs, or they can opt for the palliative care pathway,” Edward Garmey, MD, chief medical officer and chairman of the scientific advisory board at NED Biosystems, said in an interview. “NED170 has been created with the view that there needs to be another pathway available for these patients that is predicated on tumor control combined with quality-of-life preservation.
“It’s a big goal, and it certainly represents a paradigm shift for what’s currently offered to [patients with] late-stage cancer, but we feel it’s an achievable goal,” Garmey added.
Garmey said the company is finalizing the protocol for a phase I/IIA clinical trial to investigate the safety and efficacy of NED-170 in 10 patients with treatment-refractory triple-negative breast cancer and 10 with refractory cholangiocarcinoma. The FDA allowed the company to bypass the typical dose escalation required in phase I studies because the drugs involved have been demonstrated to be safe and effective in clinical trials. NED Biosystems expects to begin enrollment in the second half of 2019.
The company eventually plans to investigate the combination in other types of cancers, including breast, head and neck, and leiomyosarcoma.
