Noxopharm Ltd (ASX:NOX) has provided further information on its recently-announced collaboration with the US National Cancer Institute (NCI).
The clinical-stage drug development company told the local share market it had teamed up with an arm of the National Institutes of Health as it investigates a new family of anti-cancer drugs.
In today’s ASX update, Noxopharm described the partnership as ‘material’ to the company and revealed it would run for an initial 12-month term.
NCI’s principal investigator at the Neuro-Oncology Branch, Mioara Larion, said: “We are enthusiastic about this collaboration that aims to find new targeted molecular therapies for patients affected by diseases in the central nervous system, particularly brain cancers.”
New details
In a market announcement on Wednesday, Noxopharm noted the collaboration is material as it contributes to the company’s endeavours to bring a new class of drug, designed to tame aggressive brain cancers, into the clinic.
This new group of candidates has an intended first-in-class action designed to stop brain cancers from killing healthy brain tissue in order to accommodate an expanding cancer.
Overall, the NCI collaboration is intended to help confirm the drug’s mechanisms of anti-cancer actions and its safety in animals.
Noxopharm’s partnership is formally recognised as a Materials Cooperative Research and Development Agreement and will run for an initial one-year term.
Both parties will whether to continued their collaboration once the initial term runs its course, with any future collaboration resting entirely with Noxopharm.
The brain cancer program has a fully-costed budget covering the drug’s entire pre-clinical program, estimated to last 15-18 months when the lead candidate compound is expected to enter human testing.
The NCI collaboration also combines a company cash contribution — part of Noxopharm’s pre-clinical budget — with in-kind support from the NCI.
Intellectual property
In terms of intellectual property (IP), each party retains fully integrated IP rights to their respective technologies.
In particular, Noxopharm retains full ownership to any patents granted over the test compounds, with molecular structures specifically excluded under the terms of the agreement.
Noxopharm CEO, Graham Kelly said: “MCRADAs are highly valued because of the access they provide to the expertise and resources within the NCI, the peak cancer research group in the world.
“In this case, it means working with an eminent group of brain cancer researchers with unique laboratory and animal models.
“Working with the NCI also carries the potential of them helping future clinical development of what we see as a fresh approach to a long-standing and intractable problem.”