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Press Releases
21 December, 2005
NZ anticancer compound trialed at Waikato Hospital
NEW ZEALAND, December 21 2005 – Proacta announced today that the first human clinical trial for its New Zealand-developed anticancer compound PR-104 has been approved to start at Waikato Hospital this week.
Proacta Inc is an oncology drug discovery company developing cancer drugs which target physiological attributes of solid tumours. Proacta was founded by leading cancer researchers at the University of Auckland and Stanford University.
The two New Zealand founding scientists, Professors Bill Denny and Bill Wilson of the Auckland Cancer Society Research Centre (ACSRC) at the University of Auckland, were at Waikato Hospital today to celebrate the ethical approval to conduct human trials with the compound.
The Hon Trevor Mallard, Minister for Economic Development and Proacta's New Zealand directors, Dr John Matthews (chairman), John Villiger and Jenny Morel attended in recognition of the milestone event.
Professor Denny said PR-104 was first synthesised in New Zealand, and was also subsequently developed and progressed to clinical trial in this country. This made it a rare event and especially exciting for the New Zealand team.
"PR-104 is a unique anticancer drug that is converted to a DNA damaging agent in the hypoxic (oxygen deficient) regions in tumours," said Professor Wilson. "This first clinical trial of PR-104 is an important step internationally in seeking to exploit this abnormality of tumours as a basis for treatment," he said.
Dr Michael Jameson, the medical oncology specialist at Waikato Hospital responsible for patients in the trial, said, "it is very exciting to be able to offer our patients this opportunity to try a new experimental drug for their cancer. This first trial is aimed at finding out how much we can safely give, what side-effects there are, how the body handles the drug, and if there is any evidence of its activity against cancers.
"We will be using a co-incidence scanner to enable us to assess changes in tumour metabolism before and after dosing with PR-104. The radioactive imaging material deteriorates very quickly and has to be flown in fresh from Australia for each patient. It's not produced in New Zealand so the whole process is logistically demanding. We hope PR-104 will ultimately prove to be very effective," Dr Jameson said.
More than 65 per cent of the 10 million people who are diagnosed with cancer each year have areas of significant hypoxia in their tumours. Relapse of treated cancer is probably often due to the ability of cancer cells in hypoxic regions to survive existing treatments. Dr John Matthews, the chairman of Proacta said, "this is a day to be proud of the quality of our programmes, and the fact we have been able to achieve the first clinical trial on home ground."
"Drug discovery and development is an expensive and risky business requiring huge demands on time and resources.
"This compound would not have been possible without the support of our many investors, including funding from the New Zealand government," Dr John Matthews said. In 2004, Proacta raised US$8 million in funding from a syndicate led by GBS Venture Partners of Australia, and including New Zealand Venture Investment Fund (NZVIF) backed-New Zealand funds No 8 Ventures and Endeavour iCap, with international pharmaceutical companies Genentech and Roche.
Jenny Morel of No 8 Ventures and a director of Proacta, said, "it is fantastic to see this company being developed out of Auckland University with the assistance of the emerging New Zealand venture capital industry."
The company has also been supported with grants from TechNZ and the Australia New Zealand Biotechnology Partnership Fund administered by NZTE.
"Today represents the culmination of a long investment in basic research by the Health Research Council of New Zealand and the Auckland Cancer Society, which has been greatly accelerated in the last two years by Proacta's involvement."
"The company is very grateful for the support from its investors and the government, and we look forward to commercialising a cancer treatment that was discovered in New Zealand," Dr Matthews said.
Economic Development Minister Trevor Mallard congratulated Proacta and the scientists involved in the development of the compound. "This is a major milestone for this oncology drug discovery company, for our science and medical community, and also for New Zealand," he said.
"When the government first set up the NZVIF in 2002, one of the main aims was to facilitate the commercialisation of innovative and leading edge technology, products and services that are costly and risky to develop," Mr Mallard said.
"I am very pleased to see that our commitment is showing signs of paying off, with Proacta's ground-breaking success with this Auckland University research," he said.
Background
Proacta is focused on the treatment of tumours which have a relatively large proportion of cells that have an abnormally low-oxygen concentration, known as hypoxia. Tumour hypoxia is a condition which exists in the majority of solid tumours and makes treatment with conventional chemotherapy and radiation less likely to succeed.
Proacta's drugs are delivered as innocuous compounds that are selectively activated in low-oxygen cells of tumours. This can result in killing not only the low-oxygen cells but also the surrounding tumour cells which have more normal levels of oxygen.
For further information contact:
Carole Hartney, Awaroa Partners
ddi: 04 471 8204; mob: 0274 524 472
Dr John Matthews, Chairman Proacta
tel: 09 520 2452; mob: 021 938 521
Professor Bill Denny, Auckland Cancer Society Research Centre
ddi: 09 373 7599; bill.denny@auckland.ac.nz
Professor Bill Wilson, Auckland Cancer Society Research Centre
ddi: 09 373 7599; wr.wilson@auckland.ac.nz
Dr Michael Jameson, medical oncologist, Waikato Hospital
tel: 07 839 8604
