Basilea Pharmaceutica AG said its cancer drug candidate BAL101553 showed initial signals of clinical activity when used as a single therapy in two phase 1/2a trials.
The drug, which Basilea is developing as a potential therapy for diverse cancers, also had an acceptable safety profile.
The results are from dose-escalation parts of trials in which the therapy was administered either as a weekly 48-hour infusion or a once-daily oral dose. Basilea said it was able to determine BAL101553's maximum tolerated dose in both trials, which evaluated 33 patients with solid tumors.
BAL101553's antitumor effect was driven by total drug exposure. One ovarian cancer patient's tumor shrank, while six other patients did not see changes in cancer extent or severity.
The drug showed an acceptable safety profile, with dose-limiting toxicities being transient or reversible.
The results will allow the Switzerland-based company to advance into phase 2a trials, to evaluate the drug in adult patients with glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer, or platinum-resistant ovarian cancer.
The medicine is also being studied in two ongoing trials in patients with glioblastoma.
The 2018 American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting is expected to bring together more than 32,000 professionals from all over the world, with more than 2,500 study abstracts to be presented on site and an additional 3,350 abstracts to be published online.
