JW Pharmaceuticals said that it has presented phase 1a/1b clinical trial results for CWP291, a target anticancer treatment that uses Wnt pathway.

JW Pharmaceutical headquarters in Seocho-dong, Seoul.

The company said CWP291 is a first-in-class target anticancer drug that inhibits the growth of cancer cells and the mechanism of Wnt/b-catenin, a signaling substance involved in cancer stem cells. The drug also has important biomarkers, such as increasing C/EBP homologous proteins, which is a major factor of apoptosis of cancer cells, it added.

The company launched phase 1a clinical trials for CWP291 on 11 patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma in the U.S. and Korea in 2015 while starting phase 1b clinical trials that use CWP291 in combination with lenalidomide and dexamethasone on eight patients last year.

JW Pharmaceuticals said it expects CWP291 will become a new treatment that will replace standard therapies, as it confirmed efficacy in treating patients who have failed treatment even though they received bone marrow transplantation or single and combined chemotherapy with drugs such as bortezomib, dexamethasone, lenalidomide, and pomalidomide.

The company based the validity of the study on the strict criteria of the International Myeloma Working Group.

According to the results report, in the CWP291 monotherapy study, about 46 percent of the clinical patients showed a stable disease best overall response, while 42 percent showed stable disease best overall response in a combination regimen.

Also, one in five showed excellent partial response (VGPR), three showed a partial response, and one showed minimal response (MR). Patients who showed VGPR reached complete response during the extended treatment period.

“Although the significance of the safety and efficacy of phase 1 clinical trial is confirmed, Wnt target anticancer drug development has yet to be completed,” a company official said. “Based on the data derived from this clinical study, we will carefully examine the marketability and competitive drug status to determine the future direction of clinical research and development strategy.”

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