Kazia Therapeutics Ltd (ASX:KZA, NASDAQ:KZIA) is set to have a busy few days at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting in New Orleans, delivering multiple presentations on the paxalisib and EVT801 studies from its oncology-focused pipeline.
The company has revealed new preclinical data demonstrating the activity of paxalisib in two forms of childhood brain cancer which present very high unmet medical need.
Further, Kazia will deliver two presentations detailing the ongoing Phase 1 study of its investigational novel drug, EVT801, a selective VEGFR3 inhibitor with potential application in a variety of cancers.
“Promising data”
Kazia CEO Dr James Garner said: “This is very promising data, and we are grateful to the team at Johns Hopkins for this important and encouraging research.
“Paxalisib is already the subject of an ongoing Phase 2 clinical trial in DIPG and diffuse midline gliomas (NCT05009992) and this new data suggests potential wider applications for the drug in childhood brain cancers.
“We look forward to working with the Johns Hopkins team, and with other partners and advisors, to explore these opportunities further."
Paxalisib presentation
The Paxalisib data is the subject of three abstracts presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), held in New Orleans, LA, from April 8 – 13, 2022.
Two abstracts by scientists working in the laboratory of Assistant Professor Jeffrey Rubens at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, describe the use of paxalisib as a backbone therapy in a childhood brain cancer known as atypical teratoid/rhabdoid tumours (AT/RT).
Interestingly, this is the first time that data exploring paxalisib in this form of brain cancer has been presented, and it opens an important new potential indication for the drug.
The third abstract, from a different team of scientists at Johns Hopkins University, led by Associate Professor Eric Raabe and Dr Katherine Barnett, showed evidence of strong synergy between paxalisib and another class of cancer therapies in a model of diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG).
Paxalisib has previously shown evidence of activity in this disease, both as monotherapy and in combination with several types of cancer therapy, and the new data further validates its potential in this very challenging disease.
EVT801 presentation
The poster presentations describe the study design and a highly innovative biomarker strategy employed in the study and are being delivered at AACR.
Garner adds: “EVT801 is an exciting new drug candidate with enormous potential, and it is fitting that the study we launched in partnership with Evotec is similarly innovative.
“The sophisticated biomarker strategies employed in this study should give us a much richer and more detailed understanding of the drug than is usual at this stage of development, and those insights should in turn allow us to optimise future trials to enhance the likelihood of success for EVT801.”