Dublin, Ireland, August 7, 2019 – Inflection Biosciences Ltd, a company developing innovative therapeutics for the treatment of cancer, today announced the publication of pre-clinical data showing the company’s PIM/PI3K/mTOR, AUM302 (formerly IBL-302), has promise as a treatment for neuroblastoma. This research has recently been published in the medical journal EMBO Molecular Medicine.
This publication is the result of a collaboration between Inflection Biosciences and two research teams at the Lund University Cancer Centre, Sweden, led by Associate Professors Sofie Mohlin and Daniel Bexell. Inflection Biosciences recently announced that global development and commercialisation rights to AUM302 were granted to AUM Biosciences, Singapore.
Neuroblastoma is an extracranial childhood malignancy of the nervous system that accounts for 15% of all paediatric cancer fatalities. Despite advances in treatment, children with high‐risk disease have poor survival rates, with up to 40% 5‐year mortality. It has previously been shown that targeting the PI3K/mTOR pathway could be a viable treatment for aggressive neuroblastoma. Furthermore, in neuroblastoma cell lines and patient derived xenograft (PDX) derived cell cultures, high levels of PIM were also significantly associated with adverse neuroblastoma patient outcomes.
These published results show that from a panel of 707 cell lines across 47 tumour types, neuroblastoma was the most sensitive tumour type to AUM302 treatment, and out of 16 neuroblastoma cell lines, AUM302 was generally more effective than PI3K inhibitors alone. AUM302 improved the effect of three clinically used chemotherapeutic agents in vitro. AUM302 treatment alone reduced tumour growth in a neuroblastoma xenograft and inhibited neuroblastoma PDX growth in combination with low‐dose cisplatin.
Dr. Bexell, one of the lead authors on the publication, commented: “Adding AUM302 to current treatments to lower administered doses of highly toxic chemotherapy could decrease complications later in life and improve outcomes in these young neuroblastoma patients.”
The publication titled ‘Anti‐tumor effects of PIM/PI3K/mTOR triple kinase inhibitor IBL‐302 in neuroblastoma’ can be accessed here.
The research was funded by the Swedish Cancer Society and the Swedish Childhood Cancer Foundation.
About Inflection Biosciences
Inflection Biosciences Ltd, based in Dublin, is developing small molecule therapeutics for the treatment of cancer. The company's pipeline of highly innovative cancer treatments was licensed from the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO). The pipeline comprises the first-in-class AUM300 series (PIM/PI3K/mTOR inhibitors) partnered with AUM Biosciences, internal programs IBL-202 (PIM/PI3K inhibitor) and the IBL-100 series (selective pan-PIM kinase inhibitors), currently in pre-clinical stages of development. Data generated to date suggests potential application in a range of treatment resistant solid tumours and haematological malignancies. Inflection Biosciences was named ‘Start-up Company of the Year’ at the 2014 Irish Pharma Awards. For more information please visit www.inflectionbio.com.