CytRx Corporation (NASDAQ:CYTR), a biopharmaceutical company,
today announced that the Tumor Biology Center, Freiburg, Germany, plans
to initiate a Phase 2 clinical trial with CytRx’s doxorubicin prodrug
INNO-206 as a treatment for patients with advanced pancreatic cancer.
CytRx, which holds the exclusive worldwide rights to INNO-206, will
supply INNO-206 for the clinical trial. CytRx previously announced plans
to initiate Phase 2 clinical trials with INNO-206 in patients with
advanced soft tissue sarcomas and advanced gastric cancer.
“We are excited about INNO-206 for
advanced pancreatic cancer and believe it could become a breakthrough
drug not only for the treatment of advanced pancreatic cancer, but also
for other solid tumors.”
Prof. Dr. Clemens Unger, Medical Director, Clinic for Medical Oncology
at the Tumor Biology Center, said, “We are excited about INNO-206 for
advanced pancreatic cancer and believe it could become a breakthrough
drug not only for the treatment of advanced pancreatic cancer, but also
for other solid tumors.”
The open-label, prospective, multicenter, single-arm Phase 2 clinical
trial will enroll up to 15 adult patients with metastatic or inoperative
(unresectable ductal) pancreatic cancer who have not been previously
treated or have failed gemcitabine therapy, the current chemotherapy
standard of care for this cancer. Trial patients will be treated with
intravenously administered INNO-206 once every three weeks for up to six
cycles. Trial patients will be evaluated for overall survival, cancer
progression-free survival and objective overall response rates using the
Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST) international
standard.
Worldwide, pancreatic cancer is the eighth leading cause of cancer
death, and it ranks thirteenth in cancer incidence. In the U.S.,
pancreatic cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer mortality. The
National Cancer Institute estimates that in 2009 more than 42,000 new
cases of pancreatic cancer were reported with deaths due to this cancer
exceeding 35,000. The median survival for patients with pancreatic
cancer is typically four to six months, with a one-year survival rate of
24% and five-year survival rate of approximately 5%.