Marshall Edwards Inc, the subsidiary of pharmaceutical company, Novogen Limited, has entered into a services agreement with the Yale University School of Medicine's Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

The association with Yale revolves around the recent discovery in Yale Medical School laboratories that MEI's anti-cancer drug, phenoxodiol, has a uniquely strong effect against ovarian cancer cells.

Ovarian cancer is the fifth largest cause of death from cancer in women, and the American Cancer Society estimates that over 23,000 women will develop ovarian cancer in the US each year. The treatment options and prognosis for women with late-stage ovarian cancer remain poor.

In a search for an effective drug to treat ovarian cancer, the research team at Yale University Medical School, headed by Gil Mor, has been screening new anti-cancer drugs for their ability to kill ovarian cancer cells, and in particular, to switch off a mechanism on which ovarian cancer cells depend for survival.

Dr Mor's team has reported that phenoxodiol is a highly effective drug that kills all ovarian cancer cells and does so by a unique mechanism that causes ovarian cancer cells to self-destruct.

One of the outcomes of the Yale association will be to arrange a phase II clinical trial in patients with advanced ovarian cancer at Yale under the direction of Dr Thomas Rutherford. This will be a multi-center trial to be conducted in conjunction with an Australian university hospital.

Under US law, a new drug cannot be marketed until it has been investigated in clinical trials. After the results of these trials are submitted in a new drug application to the FDA, the FDA must approve the drug as safe and effective before marketing can take place.

MEI, which trades on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange, is 95 percent owned by Novogen Limited. MEI was established to provide a commercial vehicle for Novogen's anti-cancer drug technology, the first of which is the novel anti-cancer drug phenoxodiol.