AGOURA HILLS, Calif., Oct. 10, 2018 /PRNewswire-iReach/
Brain tumors in United States are on the rise for the last 30 years. The more common and most malignant form of brain tumors – glioblastoma (GBM) has more than doubled from 2.4 to 5.0 per 100,000. The cause for this increase remains unexplained. In face of this increase, treatment remained essentially unchanged during the last decade. Despite aggressive surgery followed by radiation and/or chemotherapy, GBM has the worst five–year survival rates among all human cancers, with an average survival from diagnosis of only about 1 year and less than 5% of the patient survived after 5 years. On top of it all, GBM will recur or regrow in most patients. Treatment of recurring a high-grade GBM that has recurred does not always improve survival compared with hospice care alone and deciding when to stop treating the cancer and entering into hospice care is frequently recommended when the patient is unlikely to live longer than six months.
The status of GBM is in stark contrast with the recent excitement in oncology where Immuno Oncology (IO) agents have shown promise to be curative by driving the immune cells to attack the tumors. Though extraordinarily effective against growing number of tumors, IOs have been ineffective against GBM. GBM is generally considered immunologically "cold" with few immune effector cells needed for successful immunotherapy. The overexpression of transforming growth factor-beta 2 (TGF-β2) is associated with poor prognosis of tumors and plays a key role in malignant progression of various tumors including GBM by inducing proliferation, metastasis, angiogenesis, and immunosuppression. Oncotelic is developing a novel TGF- β2 antisense agent (OT-101) as an immunotherapy against GBM.
Oncotelic recently presented data on a novel treatment for recurring GBM by OT-101during the American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP) Annual Meeting 2018 in Bethesda, Maryland. Patients with high grade glioma showed meaningful improvements in long term survival with OT-101 treatment according to a post hoc sub-analysis of data from the phase II G004 trial. OT-101 increases 2 yr survival of chemo naïve patients from 5.6% (receiving chemo alone) to 33% (receiving OT-101 alone). More importantly long term survival was achieved without immune suppression typical for chemotherapy. This suggests that OT-101 would be an ideal IO agent to combine with other IO agent or chemotherapy for cancers especially GBM. The poster entitled Non-inferiority of OT-101 (TGF-beta2 Specific Inhibitor) versus Standard Chemotherapy in Glioma" by Vuong Trieu, David Nam and Larn Hwang is now available as PDF download at http://oncotelic.com/.
About Trabedersen/OT-101
Trabedersen (OT-101) is a single-stranded phosphorothioate antisense oligodeoxynucleotide (18-mer) designed to specifically target the human TGF-β2 messenger RNA. The Mechanism of Action exploration focuses on targeting downregulation and immunostimulation. Trabedersen is believed to reverse TGF-β's immunosuppressive effects, rendering the tumor visible to a patient's immune system and resulting in priming and specific activation of the patient's anti-tumor immune response. OT-101 has completed multiple clinical trials with promising outcomes.
About Oncotelic Inc.
Oncotelic's lead therapeutic platform is OT-101 Oncotelic intends to conduct registration trials for multiple cancer indications including pancreatic, melanoma, and glioblastoma. The executives of Oncotelic are a group of pharmaceutical veterans who believe that OT-101will make cure for cancers possible.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements which are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Words such as "assumes," "plans," "believes," "expects," "anticipates," and "will," and similar expressions, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements include statements about the Trabedersen; and the clinical development and commercial potential of Trabedersen. All such forward-looking statements are based on Oncotelic's current beliefs and expectations, and should not be regarded as a representation by Oncotelic that any of its plans will be achieved.
Media Contact: David Nam, Oncotelic, 818.575.9560, info@oncotelic.com
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SOURCE Oncotelic Inc.