Aeterna Zentaris Inc. (NASDAQ: AEZS, TSX: AEZ) (the "Company"), a late-stage drug development company specialized in oncology and endocrine therapy, today announced that preclinical data in neuroblastoma for perifosine, the Company's novel, potentially first-in-class, oral anti-cancer agent that inhibits Akt activation in the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) pathway, will be presented at the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), currently being held at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC.
The following poster will be presented in Exhibit Hall A-C on Wednesday, April 21, 2010, from 8:00am-11:00am:
Abstract # 5248
Presentation "Neuroblastoma tumors with different ALK mutations Title: are sensitive to Perifosine" Poster Section: 16 Poster Board Number: 2 Author Block: Zhijie Li, Carol J. Thiele Cell & Molecular Biology Section POB/NCI/NIH, Bethesda, MD
Data demonstrating that single agent perifosine targets activation of Akt in neuroblastoma cells and xenografts, significantly inhibited tumor growth in vivo and improved the survival of mice bearing neuroblastoma tumors, was originally presented at the 2009 AACR annual meeting by the same group from the Pediatric Oncology Branch of the National Institute of Health.
A Phase 1 trial exploring the safety and efficacy of single agent perifosine in patients with pediatric tumors, including neuroblastoma, is currently being conducted by Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.