Synta Pharmaceuticals Corp. (NASDAQ: SNTA), a biopharmaceutical company
focused on discovering, developing, and commercializing small molecule
drugs to treat severe medical conditions, today announced that it is
initiating a Phase 2 clinical study of STA-9090 in patients with
advanced gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST). This is the sixth
clinical study of STA-9090, a potent, synthetic, small molecule Hsp90
inhibitor with a novel chemical structure.
“Both imatinib (Gleevec®) and sunitinib (Sutent®)
have proven very effective in helping patients with GIST to live longer;
however, the majority of patients will eventually experience disease
progression despite treatment with both of those molecularly targeted
therapies”
"Both imatinib (Gleevec®) and sunitinib (Sutent®)
have proven very effective in helping patients with GIST to live longer;
however, the majority of patients will eventually experience disease
progression despite treatment with both of those molecularly targeted
therapies," said George Demetri, M.D., Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
"Once those two standard drugs fail, patients have a poor prognosis and
very limited treatment options. Hsp90 inhibition is a promising
therapeutic approach for these patients because the mutated kinase
proteins that are the cause of resistance to both Gleevec®
and Sutent® depend upon being chaperoned and protected by the
function of Hsp90. STA-9090 can potently inhibit the Hsp90 function and
disrupt the mutant signaling in multidrug-resistant GIST. Based on the
preclinical and early clinical results seen to date, STA-9090 has the
potential to unlock the true potential of Hsp90 as a therapeutic target
in GIST."
Preclinical results related to STA-9090 in GIST were presented by
Jonathan Fletcher, M.D., Brigham and Women’s Hospital, at the
AACR-NCI-EORTC Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics
in November 2009.