Stockholm (Press Release) - Oncopeptides AB, a com­pany work­ing to en­hance on­col­ogy ther­a­pies, to­day an­nounced that the first patient has been dosed as part of a Phase II study in mul­ti­ple myeloma patients with its drug can­di­date melflufen (previously called J1).

The trial is an open-label Phase II study de­signed to de­ter­mine the level of ef­fi­cacy of melflufen in com­bi­na­tion with dexa­meth­a­sone, for late stage, relapsing or relapsing/refractory patients. The pri­mary end point is, best re­sponse in accordance with the Inter­na­tional Myeloma Work­ing Group criteria during up to eight cycles of treat­ment.

The trial is being carried out across four centers in Europe (the Netherlands, Italy, Denmark and Sweden) and two in the USA.

Chief Medical Of­fi­cer Dr Johan Harmenberg commented, "Cytotoxic com­­pounds form an integral part of com­bi­na­tion treat­ment in malignant dis­ease. Melphalan is part of the stan­dard of care in mul­ti­ple myeloma and im­prov­ing this component with melflufen should re­­sult in sig­nif­i­cant patient ben­e­fit."

Multiple myeloma is the sec­ond most common hema­to­logical can­cer and manifests from an ab­nor­mal­ity of plasma cells, usually in the bone mar­row. Worldwide, more than 180,000 people are living with mul­ti­ple myeloma and approx­i­mately 86,000 new cases are diag­nosed annually (International Agency for Re­search on Cancer).

About Oncopeptides AB

Oncopeptides is a clin­i­cal stage pharma­ceu­tical devel­op­ment com­pany work­ing to en­hance on­col­ogy thera­pies, by creating cytosuperiors of existing basic cyto­toxic com­­pounds.

Oncopeptides is targeting mul­ti­ple myeloma as a first indi­ca­tion with its lead com­­pound, named melflufen which is a cytosuperior of the chemo­ther­a­peu­tic al­kyl­ator mel­phalan.

A family of enzymes that is overexpressed at very high levels in can­cer cells, such as mul­ti­ple myeloma cells, cleaves melflufenso its active metabolite is entrapped at high con­cen­tra­tions within the dis­eased cells. This re­­sults in partially targeted de­livery of the chemo­ther­a­peu­tic com­­pound to the can­cer cells, and thereby better treat­ment of the dis­ease.

Primary can­cer cells from patients rep­re­senting twenty dif­fer­en­t types of can­cers have been studied, in­clud­ing mul­ti­ple myeloma, with melflufen showing 50- to 100-fold higher anti-tumor potency over mel­phalan.

Source: Oncopeptides.