Prostate cancer drug demonstrates major survival benefit

02-Mar-2021 - Last updated on 02-Mar-2021 at 15:45 GMT

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Related tags Cancer Oncology Prostate cancer clinical study

According to Noxopharm, a recent study shows combining its Veyonda drug and a radiopharmaceutical yields favorable results against prostate cancer.

Noxopharm has released the most recent survival data from its LuPIN prostate cancer study. The company reports results show a median overall survival (mOS) of 19.7 months, higher than all other mOS results for existing prostate cancer treatments in their own registration studies.

These findings reportedly support evidence that a combination of Veyonda (NOX66) and experimental radiopharmaceutical 177lutetium-PSMA-617 could be successful in the treatment of metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). This could offer a patient with mCRPC a high chance of the cancer responding to treatment to the extent of obtaining a meaningful survival outcome.

Gisela Mautner, Noxopharm chief medical officer, shared findings and perspectives from the report with Outsourcing-Pharma. These include:

High PSA response rate – 61% of patients had a PSA reduction of greater than 50%, and 86% of patients had a PSA reduction. [PSA stands for prostate specific antigen and is a measure of disease activity.]
53% of men suffering moderate-to-strong pain associated with cancer reported a significant reduction in pain.
Progression free survival (PFS) of 7.5 months – 5 of 56 men have not had any disease progression.
46% of men were able to complete the full six cycles of treatment without cancer progression.
The median overall survival (mOS) was 19.7 months.

“The most important result is the overall survival length; it means that half of the patients lived for about 20 months or longer from the time they started the treatment,” Mautner told OSP. “This is significant as ordinarily, this patient group would have a life expectancy of only about five months.”

Noxopharm CEO Graham Kelly said the results shared in the latest LuPIN study findings indicate that Veyonda offers potential as a major new immunotherapy oncology drug.

“Providing men at this stage with an opportunity to achieve about an average of 20 months of life, with obviously more in some men, is an extraordinary outcome,” he commented. “This could potentially revolutionize the treatment of end-stage prostate cancer.”

The study enrolled 56 patients whose cancers had progressed to an advanced stage, despite use of standard therapeutics. The goal of the combined treatment, according to researchers, was to slow or block tumor progression to deliver better quality of life and extended survival for these men, and to do so in a well-tolerated way.

Mautner told OSP that Veyonda is the company’s first pipeline drug candidate; other ongoing or recently completed studies involving the treatment include:

IONIC study, combining Veyonda with the Bristol Myers Squibb immune checkpoint inhibitor nivolumab (Opdivo) in treatment of various solid tumor types.
DARRT program, combining Veyonda with low-dose radiotherapy applied to a single secondary tumor in the treatment of metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer; a reported 67% of patients responded to treatment with stable disease or better, 63% of patients had a major reduction in pain levels including four patients who achieved a pain-free state, and 31% of patients had a clinically significant PSA response.
NOXCOVID, checking Veyonda’s potential to block cytokine storm, a common symptom in hospitalized COVID-19 patients.