The chief executive officers of Amplia Therapeutics Ltd (ASX:ATX) and Patrys Ltd (ASX:PAB) outlined their cancer drugs’ unique properties at the Proactive Lifesciences Webinar on Tuesday.
Amplia has recently made the shift from the pre-clinical stage to drug development, with two potent candidates for cancer and fibrotic diseases treatment, while Patrys is on the cusp of the same shift, with its lead small antibody fragment asset PAT DX1 due to move to clinical trials in late 2022.
‘FAK inhibitors’ driving Amplia growth
Amplia is developing two potent inhibitors of focal adhesion kinase (FAK), which is a protein involved in cell adhesion and spreading processes, which dictate how cells stick to each other and move around.
FAK is involved in the development of many cancers and studies have shown that when FAK is blocked, or inhibited, cancer cells become less metastatic (they spread less vigorously).
Amplia’s focus is on developing FAK inhibitors for cancer and fibrosis purposes, and in the webinar its CEO and managing director John Lambert said its lead candidate, AMP945, was “best in class”.
“There are other FAK inhibitors being developed but we truly believe ours is the best, it is an exquisitely selective and potent molecule,” he said.
Pipeline
The two proprietary, orally available, small molecule FAK inhibitors for the treatment of cancer and various fibrotic diseases are:
- AMP945: a highly potent and selective inhibitor of FAK; and
- AMP886: a highly potent inhibitor of FAK that also inhibits two other validated disease targets (VEGFR3 and FLT3).
Amplia has successfully completed a Phase 1 clinical trial of AMP945 in healthy volunteers. On the back of positive data from this trial, Amplia is preparing for Phase 2 trials of AMP945 in patients with pancreatic cancer and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
Lambert said the company had high hopes for its efficacy in pancreatic cancer.
“The five-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer is less than 10% so it is a seriously unmet medical need,” he said.
“Even an incremental improvement over the standard of care would be of significant interest to the clinicals treating these patients.
“We also expect that, should it be effective against pancreatic cancer, that it will be able to meet other indications, so we see it as a gateway in that sense.”
FAK market
Lambert also pointed to the exciting market for FAK inhibitors - in February this year, Qilu Pharmaceutical, a major Chinese pharmaceutical company, acquired the rights to develop and commercialise Cend Therapeutics Inc’s investigational drug, CEND-1, in Greater China.
“Cend is doing a very similar thing to us in pancreatic cancer and we hope to generate very similar data in the next 12-24 months,” he said.
Meanwhile, NASDAQ-listed Verastem Inc is also developing FAK inhibitors in oncology applications.
“Verastem is valued at about half a billion dollars and it is the best comparison to us, because they are investigating the same mechanism of action,” Lambert said.
Patrys’ revolutionary antibody approach
Patrys is developing a revolutionary antibody approach for fighting cancer with its deoxymab platform based on unique, proprietary antibodies.
deoxymab is based on an antibody called 3E10 that was originally isolated from a mouse model of a human autoimmune disease called systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).
What makes it 3E10 so exciting however is that it has several biological properties that are not normally found in antibodies, including the ability to target cancers regardless of the surface markers being expressed, the ability to cross the blood-brain barrier and the inhibition of DNA damage repair.
“These three characteristics are really attractive goals for drug developing cancer companies,” Patrys CEO and managing director James Campbell told investors.
“We’re particularly excited about its potential in treating brain cancers - glioblastoma has a tragic five-year survival rate, lower than 6%, and when we injected human glioblastoma cells into mice we saw significant limiting of tumour growth and a 47% improvement in survival rates.”
Cancer-fighting plans
Production of PAT-DX1, the company’s lead asset, will be scaled up in the fourth quarter of 2021 and will be used for rodent and primate toxicology studies, which will inform the Human Research Ethics Application (HREA) for the phase 1 clinical study in humans.
PAT-DX1 is initially going to be developed as a potential therapeutic for treating primary and secondary brain cancers due to its ability to cross the blood-brain barrier.
The company is confident it has the skills and resources to get the treatment into phase 1 clinical trials in late 2022.
Its initial focus is on glioblastoma (GBM) and triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), with plans to expand into other solid tumours in the future.
Partner potential before phase 1
Patrys’ development of two humanised forms of deoxymab 3E10, PAX-DX1 and PAT-DX3, are examples of biologics, which are extracted from living organisms, rather than small molecules, which are chemically derived, giving Patrys further advantage in an attractive marketplace, according to Campbell.
“When we look at transactions, small molecules typically transact much later than biologics,” he said.
“We have a wealth of data at the pre-clinical stage, and 60% of biologics transact before moving into the clinic; there are also twice as many deals and at much higher valuations.
“So we believe our window to partner with bigger pharmaceutical companies is wide open, even as we prepare to head into the clinic.”
Stay tuned for a broader piece exploring cancer-fighting biotech companies listed on the ASX on Thursday.
- Daniel Paproth