Some data about a drug called APR-246 has come to light at the ongoing annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology in Orlando (which is not exactly a prime source for information about prostate cancer).
APR-246 (also known as PRIMA-1MET) is in development by a Swedish company called Aprea AB in a close affiliation with the Karolinska Institute. It belongs to a new class of anticancer compounds that are able to induce programmed cell death mediated by p53. p53 is a tumor suppressor that can activate the transcription of genes that induce cell cycle arrest (i.e., block of cell division) or apoptosis (i.e., programmed cell death). The compound has already been tested in a Phase I clinical trial in Sweden, and a Phase II trial is expected to start in early 2011. Additional information about the development of APR-246 is available on the Aprea AB web site.
APR-246, however, is being tested in late stage prostate cancer and in a number of hematologic malignancies (cancers of the blood), so its future development may well depend on exactly how these very different types of cancer respond in the Phase II clinical trial(s).
APR-246 is currently being given to patients as a 2-hour infusion. In the case of prostate cancer, patients have been limited to those with metastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). The theory is that APR-246 may be able to restore normal (“wild type”) function of p53 in mutated cancer cells. (This is a common category of mutation in advanced forms of prostate cancer.)
Data about the Phase II clinical trial of APR-246 is not yet available on ClinicalTrials.gov. We assume that enrollment into this trial is likely to be limited (at least initially) to a European population of patients.
Filed under: Drugs in development Tagged: | APR-246, castration-resistant, mCRPC, metastatic, p53
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