OXiGENE, Inc., a clinical-stage, biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapeutics to treat cancer and eye diseases, announced that it has completed its targeted enrolment of 60 patients in the FALCON trial, a randomized, controlled phase 2 study of ZYBRESTAT in patients with non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). An updated safety and outcome analysis from this trial was recently presented at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) showing that trends towards improved outcomes were observed in response rate, progression-free survival and overall survival rates in the study arm (ZYBRESTAT combined with bevacizumab and carboplatin/paclitaxel chemotherapy) as compared with the control arm (bevacizumab and chemotherapy) of the trial. The combination regimen including ZYBRESTAT was observed to be well-tolerated with no significant cumulative toxicities when compared with the control arm of the study. OXiGENE anticipates that further data from the trial will be available later in 2010.
"We continue to be encouraged by the growing body of data showing that ZYBRESTAT has potential as an important cancer treatment based on its unique vascular disrupting mechanism of action and excellent combinability with other treatment modalities, including anti-angiogenic agents," said Peter Langecker, M.D., chief executive officer at OXiGENE. "We look forward to presenting a more complete analysis of the FALCON trial later in 2010 at a scientific meeting. If the encouraging positive trends in terms of progression free survival and overall survival that we presented at ASCO are maintained, they will underscore ZYBRESTAT's utility in non-small cell lung cancer and potentially pave the way toward embarking upon a registration pathway. We appreciate the positive response to our data from the oncology community and plan to continue efforts to find a partner for later-stage development."
ZYBRESTAT is being evaluated in a phase 2 study of patients with non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer and other clinical trials. OXiGENE believes that ZYBRESTAT is poised to become an important product in a novel class of small-molecule drug candidates called vascular disrupting agents. Through interaction with vascular endothelial cell cytoskeletal proteins, ZYBRESTAT selectively targets and collapses tumour vasculature, thereby depriving the tumour of oxygen and causing death of tumour cells. In clinical trials in solid tumors, ZYBRESTAT has demonstrated potent and selective activity against tumour vasculature, as well as clinical activity against anaplastic thyroid cancer, ovarian cancer and various other solid tumours.
OXiGENE is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapeutics to treat cancer and eye diseases. The company's major focus is developing vascular disrupting agents that selectively disrupt abnormal blood vessels associated with solid tumour progression and visual impairment.