Cantex Pharmaceuticals gave an overview of its lead candidate anti-cancer drug CX-02 at last week’s World Orphan Drug Congress USA in Washington, D.C.
Cantex is a clinical-stage biopharma company that develops and markets therapies to treat cancer and other life-threatening diseases. Based in Weston, Fla., it uses proprietary modifications and applies them to well-known drugs that have been proven safe and effective.
The company’s new anti-cancer drug, CX-02, combines copper and Antabuse (disulfiram), a medicine used to treat chronic alcoholism. Previous tests on CX-02 revealed that it has several non-overlapping cancer cell-killing mechanisms which make it effective against both prostate cancer and gliobastoma, an aggressive brain cancer. CX-02 works by inhibiting the capacity of cancer cells to degrade unwanted proteins, and by inducing production of the toxic reactive oxygen compounds that destroy the cell’s components.
“Clinical and pre-clinical evidence strongly suggests that CX-02 has cancer-cell killing effects against glioblastoma, breast cancer, prostate cancer and other forms of cancer,” Cantex CEO Stephen Marcus said in a press release. “As we advance CX-02 into Phase II trials for recurrent glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer, events such as the World Orphan Drug Congress offer an important opportunity to interact with key stakeholders in the orphan drug community.”
Following promising preclinical and Phase 1 study results, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted Orphan Drug Designation to CX-02 for treating glioblastoma. Cantex is now recruiting participants for a Phase 2 clinical trial for recurrent glioblastoma, to be conducted jointly with major U.S. cancer centers.
Centex expects to initiate a CX-02 Phase 2 clinical trial for metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer in the second half of 2017, with a focus on the very high unmet medical need of men who respond poorly to androgen-receptor targeted therapies. The company plan another Phase 2 study in 2018 for treatment of metastatic breast cancer patients.