Placon Therapeutics announces company launch and FDA acceptance of IND for novel platinum candidate BTP-114

Placon, spun out from Blend Therapeutics, to pursue development of next generation cytotoxic oncology drugs.

Placon plans to pursue the development of novel platinum-based cancer therapies that are designed to substantially improve the efficacy and side-effect profile of widely used traditional platinum medicines. Specifically, Placon is focused on advancing BTP-114 into clinical studies in patients with refractory solid tumours, and the company is seeking to advance this lead candidate into clinical development through collaboration with a strategic partner or with investors.

“Platinum-based drugs are a cornerstone of many therapeutic regimens for patients with solid tumours, and we believe that BTP-114 reflects the latest innovations in cancer R&D to offer improvements beyond today’s cytotoxic medicines that may provide enhanced benefits for cancer patients,” said M. James Barrett, a Director of Placon Therapeutics and investor at New Enterprise Associates (NEA). “The FDA’s acceptance of the clinical trial approach for BTP-114 is an important milestone in the development of this promising cancer drug candidate, and we are actively seeking collaborative opportunities to move forward into the clinic.”

In April 2015, preclinical data for BTP-114 were presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting. These studies demonstrated sustained tumour growth inhibition in multiple xenograft models and reduced dose limiting toxicities compared to cisplatin. The presentation also described the mechanism of Placon’s advanced platinum drugs, which take advantage of emerging insights from cancer biology, genomics and molecular tumour targeting. Once administered, BTP-114 conjugated with serum albumin to allow long circulating half-life before preferential uptake by cancer cells with certain molecular profiles, showing results in the study of a 13-fold increased accumulation of platinum in the tumour.