DelMar Pharmaceuticals has entered into a multi-year collaboration with Dr. Madan Kwatra, Director of the Glioblastoma Drug Discovery Group at Duke University for a project entitled, “Development of VAL-083, alone or in combination with other agents, to inhibit the growth of specific subsets of glioblastoma (personalized drug development).” The three-year preclinical study project has a budget of $715,500 and has the goal of improving the standard of care for the management of newly diagnosed glioblastoma (GBM) patients.
GBM is a deadly brain cancer, and attempts to control its progression have failed. The current standard of care consists of surgery followed by radiation and chemotherapy using temozolomide. However, temozolomide only works for about 40% of GBM patients that have a methylated MGMT promoter. In contrast, VAL-083 is a novel chemotherapeutic agent that has activity against GBM with both methylated and unmethylated MGMT promoters. Thus, VAL-083 is a more versatile chemotherapeutic agent that may help a wider subset of GBM patients. The completion of the proposed preclinical studies will identify molecular characteristics of GBM tumors that are more likely to respond to VAL-083 therapy either alone, or through combination therapies. This personalized medicine approach will be used to initiate clinical trials in newly diagnosed GBM patients
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