Cellceutix Corporation issued a press release yesterday to announce that they have filed U.S. and foreign patent applications that cover pharmaceutical formulations of their compound Kevetrin™, which is being developed as a treatment for drug-resistant cancers. The patent applications not only cover Kevetrin as a treatment for cancer, but a variety of other areas and also cover many other unique compounds that have similar structures which Cellceutix may later choose to develop also.
George Evans, Chief Executive Officer of Cellceutix, was quoted as saying, “This filing should give us a strong patent position in the major markets around the world.” Mr. Evans continued, “The timing is excellent for Cellceutix as we approach our phase 1 study with Kevetrin.”
Kevetrin is a 100% novel compound that has shown promising results in data concluded from pre-clinical testing. Many biotechnology companies are “revamping” existing compounds as treatments for cancer strains. Kevetrin is a completely unique compound being developed by the Cellceutix team. Their research in animal studies has shown that Kevetrin significantly delayed tumor growth in multi-drug resistant cancer cell lines including lung, breast and colon carcinomas.
Cellceutix has presented data on Kevetrin at the prestigious American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) on several occasions. In October of 2009, Cellceutix Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Krishna Menon, was one of only four individuals selected to participate in an expert panel discussion of the abstract at the AACR meeting “Frontiers in Basic Cancer Research” held in Boston, MA. More recently, in April at the 101st Annual Meeting of the AACR in Washington, D.C, data presented at the American Association for Cancer Research, the efficacy of Kevetrin in a mouse model of drug resistant lung cancer was shown to increase with increasing dose. The data presented at the AACR also shows that the administration of a second cycle of therapy with Kevetrin in the same animal model continues to delay tumor growth without the development of resistance.
“The animal data on Kevetrin have consistently shown strong activity against drug resistant cancer cell lines,” said Dr. Menon with regards to the developments of Kevetrin. He further stated, “We are continuing to make solid progress toward our IND filing, which would be a major milestone for us.”
The statistical data from the Kevetrin research can be viewed on the Cellceutix Corporation website at www.cellceutix.com.
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