On April 20, 2017 Mateon Therapeutics, Inc. (OTCQX:MATN), a biopharmaceutical company developing vascular disrupting agents (VDAs) for the treatment of orphan oncology indications, reported that the Markey Cancer Center at the University of Kentucky has enrolled the first patient into a new phase 1 study of CA4P in combination with everolimus for the treatment of neuroendocrine tumors (Press release, Mateon Therapeutics, APR 20, 2017, View Source [SID1234518638]).

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"The combination of CA4P and everolimus has the potential to decrease the ability of tumor cells to recover between CA4P treatment cycles," stated Lowell B. Anthony, M.D., Professor of Medicine and Chief, Division of Medical Oncology, Markey Cancer Center, University of Kentucky. "This is the first trial testing this hypothesis in neuroendocrine tumors – with CA4P disrupting the existing tumor blood supply and everolimus preventing a new tumor blood supply from re-forming. Our findings from this trial should lead to a larger clinical study once we have identified the optimal dose and schedule for the combination of these two agents."

Study MCC-2016-088 is designed to demonstrate whether the addition of CA4P to everolimus may improve tumor control without additional toxicity. Everolimus has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of advanced pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors and progressive gastrointestinal neuroendocrine tumors, among other indications, and is marketed by Novartis under the tradename AFINITOR. Mateon has previously demonstrated initial evidence of efficacy for CA4P in patients with neuroendocrine tumors when CA4P was provided as a single agent.

Study MCC-2016-088 is being sponsored, funded, and conducted by the Markey Cancer Center, with Mateon providing the investigational drug. The study is designed as a single center, open label, phase 1 clinical trial for patients with grade 1-3 gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. In the first part of the study, up to 15 patients will be treated with everolimus in combination with two different dosing regimens of CA4P to establish appropriate CA4P dosing levels and evaluate the safety of the drug combination. The second part of the study is designed to enroll 15 additional patients for assessment of additional safety and efficacy data. Patients enrolled in MCC-2016-088 will be treated with CA4P and everolimus for 12 weeks.

For further information about the clinical trial, please visit www.clinicaltrials.gov, Study NCT03014297.

Mateon has received orphan drug designation for CA4P for the treatment of neuroendocrine tumors from both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and from the European Medicines Agency.