Sareum Holdings PLC (LON:SAR) has highlighted the expansion of the patient cohort for a Phase 2 cancer drug trail being carried out by Sierra Oncology.
NASDAQ-listed Sierra is the licence holder for Sareum intellectual property relating to certain potential ‘inhibitor’ drug treatments for cancers.
The American company, in its financial results statement out today, confirmed that the SRA737-02 Phase 1/2 Low Dose Gemcitabine Combination Trial was now expanding its patient cohort.
WATCH: Sareum Holdings PLC heartened by Sierra Oncology progress
"We are very pleased with the progress that Sierra Oncology has made across its clinical trials and future plans with SRA737,” said Dr Tim Mitchell, Sareum chief executive.
“Sierra's clinical development strategy to target genetically defined patients is an approach that is gaining increasing confidence throughout the industry as it selects for patients who might best respond to a particular treatment regimen while potentially shortening the overall development time for novel cancer therapies such as SRA737."
Additionally, it noted that the Phase 2 element of the trial would explore the preliminary efficacy of SRA737 plus low dose gemcitabine – specifically, in prospectively enrolled genetically-defined patients with tumours that “harbour genomic alterations hypothesised to confer sensitivity to Chk1 inhibition via synthetic lethality”.
The cohort expansion is targeting 80 patients across four cancer indications; urothelial carcinoma, small cell lung cancer (SCLC), soft tissue sarcoma, and cervical/anogenital cancer.
Sierra also highlighted, as previously announced, that significant progress was made in the LDG Combo Dose Escalation Phase 1, and the combination regimen was very well-tolerated.
It is anticipated that a further study updated will be provided in the fourth quarter of this year.