National Cancer Institute Awards Grant to NuvOx Pharma for Phase II Clinical Trial in Brain Cancer

The National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Institute (NCI) has awarded a grant for up to $3 million to NuvOx Pharma to initiate a Phase II clinical trial for the investigational drug, NVX-108, in the brain cancer, glioblastoma multiforme (GBM).

Image courtesy of NuvOx Pharma

NVX-108 is an injectable drug that travels through the bloodstream, arriving first at the lungs to pick up oxygen and finally to hypoxic tissue, where it passively delivers the oxygen. It is designed to reduce tumor hypoxia in order to make tumors more sensitive to radiation therapy and chemotherapy.

The clinical trial’s principal investigator, Baldassarre Stea, M.D., Ph.D., said, “Tumor hypoxia is known to be a problem in many tumor types, including GBM. Hypoxic tumors are resistant to radiation therapy and certain kinds of chemotherapy. By increasing tumor oxygen levels, NVX-108 is designed to improve the effectiveness of these therapies in order to kill cancer cells more effectively and increase patient survival. Clinical trials are needed to see if NVX-108 can become approved by regulators.” NVX-108 completed a Phase Ib/II clinical trial in GBM in Australia. The drug showed safety and reversed tumor hypoxia on an MRI biomarker imaging study. In this open label study, patients have survived longer than historical control.

The grant is the third in a series of Small Business Innovation and Research (SBIR) grants from the NCI to NuvOx Pharma, and is specifically designed to incentivize partnerships between grant funded companies and third-party investors and/or strategic partners by matching funds from these sources. The award grants $1 million this year and recommends $2 million over the following two years subject to the availability of funds and satisfactory progress of the project.

Disclaimer: This research is supported by the NCI under Award Number R44CA144817. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. Certain statements in this release may constitute “forward-looking statements.” Actual events or results may differ substantially as a result of risks and uncertainties facing us. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of future events, new information, or otherwise.