Benzinga | Apr 5, 2021 10:52AM EDT

Kintara Taking The Lead In Developing New And Innovative Rare Cancer Therapies

Kintara Therapeutics, Inc. Chief Executive Officer Saiid Zarrabian participated in the Benzinga Biotech Small Cap Conference held March 24-25, 2021.

Kintara Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:KTRA) a biopharmaceutical company based in San Diego, California, and focused on the development of new solid tumor cancer therapies, continues to lead in the cancer treatment industry space with developing new and innovative novel cancer therapies for patients with rare unmet medical needs.

Kintara is now developing two Phase 3-ready therapeutics, VAL-083 for glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) and REM-001 for cutaneous metastatic breast cancer (CMBC). The company has also recently enrolled the final patient in the recurrent arm of its ongoing Phase 2 clinical study of VAL-083 being conducted at the MD Anderson Cancer Center (MD Anderson).

VAL-083 is a "first-in-class," small-molecule chemotherapeutic with a novel mechanism of action that has demonstrated clinical activity against a range of cancers, including central nervous system, ovarian and other solid tumors (e.g., NSCLC, bladder cancer, head and neck) in U.S. clinical trials sponsored by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Based on Kintara's internal research programs and these prior NCI-sponsored clinical studies, Kintara is currently conducting clinical trials to support the development and commercialization of VAL-083 in GBM.

"Given the urgent need for improved treatment options for this deadly disease, we are pleased to have reached the very important milestone of full enrollment in the recurrent arm of this Phase 2 clinical study," said Saiid Zarrabian, Kintara's chief executive officer. "Moving forward, we anticipate reporting topline results from the recurrent arm in the second quarter of 2021."

The recurrent arm of the study addresses patients suffering from GBM who have been pretreated with temozolomide (TMZ) prior to disease recurrence. The trial was designed to enroll up to 83 patients (35 patients at 40 mg/m2/day and 48 patients at 30mg/m2/day) to determine whether treatment with VAL-083 improves overall survival.

The VAL-083 GBM option will give Kintara the opportunity to become a player in major unmet medical needs and an $800 million market growing to an expected $1.4 billion in 2021. There are currently 30,000 newly-diagnosed patients in the U.S. and Europe. Kintara's VAL-083 joins Bayer's Regorafenib and Kazia's Paxalisib as the three compounds in the GBM AGILE Trial, where Kintara's VAL-083 is the only drug currently participating in all three patient subtypes: Newly-Diagnosed MGMT Unmethylated, Newly-Diagnosed MGMT Methylated, and Recurrent.

The advantage of three patient groups is that it gives us three separate opportunities for success," said Zarrabian. "We can run three patient subtypes for the same cost as a single patient subtype. The other important benefit is cost and time savings and because GCAR began the patient study in 2019 and don't have to start from scratch."

Kintara has now positioned itself as an emerging and diversified oncology company with two late-stage products targeting clear and unmet cancer needs. Its Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) VAL-083 represents a potential $1 billion market opportunity and its CMBC REM-001 is a potential $500 million market opportunity and is Phase 3 ready.

Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash