A Phase 1/2 Safety Study of Intratumorally Dosed INT230-6

INT230-6 is comprised of 3 agents in a fixed ratio - a cell permeation enhancer and two, potent anti-cancer payloads (cisplatin and vinblastine sulfate). The penetration enhancer facilitates dispersion of the two drugs throughout injected tumors and enables increased diffusion into cancer cells. Nonclinical safety studies showed no findings following drug injection into healthy tissues.

Historically physicians administer the two active drugs comprising INT230-6 by intravenous (IV) infusion to achieve a systemic blood level at the limit of tolerability. The objective is destroy both visible tumors and unseen circulating cancer cells (micro-metastases). Unfortunately, dosing drugs IV delivers only a small amount with a low concentration at the tumor site. This approach especially for late stage cancers is not highly effective and often quite toxic to the patient.

Attempts at direct intratumoral injection with chemotherapeutic agents have not shown the ability to treat the injected tumor, non-injected tumors or micro-metastases. This lack of efficacy for local administration is due possibly to poor dispersion and a lack of cell uptake of the agents.

Due to the use of the novel cell penetration enhancing agent INT230-6 treatment demonstrated strong efficacy in animals having large tumors. The Sponsor's in vivo, non-clinical data shows that INT230-6 thoroughly saturates and kills injected tumors. In addition, the drug induces an adaptive (T-cell mediated) immune response that attacks not only the injected tumor, but non-injected tumors and unseen micro-metastases. Cured animals become permanently immunized against the type of cancer that INT230-6 eliminates.

Clinical trial IT-01 sought to determine the safety and potential efficacy of dosing INT230-6 directly into several different types of cancers. In addition, animal studies showed a strong synergy of INT230-6 with immune modulation agents. Thus, as part of study IT-01 the Sponsor seeks to understand the safety and efficacy of INT230-6 when administered in combination with immuno-therapeutic agents such as antibodies that target Programmed Cell Death (PD-1 or anti-PD-1) and Cytotoxic T-Lymphocyte Associated Protein 4 (CTLA-4 or anti-CTLA-4) receptors.

This study sought to understand whether tumor regression can be achieved, and patient outcomes improved.