SAN DIEGO – Kintara Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: KTRA) (“Kintara” or the “Company”), a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of new solid tumor cancer therapies, announced that a multiyear research grant from Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR) and Cancer Foundation Luxembourg has been awarded to Doctor Anna Golebiewska Ph.D., co-leading the NORLUX Neuro-Oncology laboratory with Professor Simone Niclou at the Luxembourg Institute of Health. The FNR is the main funder of research activities in Luxembourg. The Cancer Foundation Luxembourg is dedicated to patient support and oncology research by providing information to the cancer patient community on preventing, screening and living with the disease. The two organizations jointly fund outstanding projects in the cancer research field. The grant is intended to support Dr. Golebiewska’s research on the mechanism of action for VAL-083’s utility to treat glioblastoma (GBM). Trained as a cellular and molecular biologist, Dr. Golebiewska has been engaged in brain tumor research primarily focused on the biology of GBM with a special interest in tumor heterogeneity, plasticity, and tumor microenvironment.
Along with co-investigator Dr. Petr Nazarov, Ph.D., Dr. Golebiewska’s research project is titled “Deconvolution of heterogeneity in the Glioblastoma cellular ecosystem for understanding treatment resistance and improving patient stratification (DIOMEDES),” and is based on complementary expertise in GBM biology and computational methods for the deconvolution of the complex biological systems associated with the disease. By combining state-of-the art preclinical models, transcriptomic analyses at the single and bulk cell level, and powerful deconvolution methods, the researchers aim to unravel mechanisms that shape treatment resistance in GBM. They will assess transcriptomic changes upon treatment with Temozolomide (TMZ) and VAL-083 in their GBM patient-derived orthotopic xenografts (PDOXs). Direct treatment of PDOXs will allow for the investigation of transcriptomic transitions towards resistant states at the moment of treatment. This research may lead to improved stratification of patients for personalized therapies.
“The recognition and financial support from this esteemed organization to support VAL-083’s research in Dr. Golebiewska’s laboratory is extremely exciting as it will provide important data to optimize the clinical use of this first-in-class small molecule chemotherapeutic,” said Dennis Brown, Ph. D., Kintara’s Chief Scientific Officer. “The findings from this research will help elucidate potential therapeutic targets for innovative combination treatment strategies that involve VAL-083 and importantly, further advance the opportunity to increase therapeutic precision when treating GBM patients.”
The DIOMEDES project in addition to Kintara’s other scientific collaborations with investigators at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, University of California San Francisco, and the University of British Columbia, have helped to refine the understanding of VAL-083’s therapeutic potential as a treatment for multiple oncology indications including platinum resistant ovarian cancer, pediatric cancers such as DIPG and Ewings sarcoma, as well as GBM where the utility of the current standard of care (TMZ) is very limited.
About Kintara
Located in San Diego, California, Kintara is dedicated to the development of novel cancer therapies for patients with unmet medical needs. Kintara is developing two late-stage, Phase 3-ready therapeutics for clear unmet medical needs with reduced risk development programs. The two programs are VAL-083 for Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) and REM-001 for Cutaneous Metastatic Breast Cancer (CMBC).
VAL-083 is a “first-in-class”, small-molecule chemotherapeutic with a novel mechanism of action that has demonstrated clinical activity against a range of cancers, including central nervous system, ovarian and other solid tumors (e.g., NSCLC, bladder cancer, head and neck) in U.S. clinical trials sponsored by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Based on Kintara’s internal research programs and these prior NCI-sponsored clinical studies, Kintara is currently advancing VAL-083 in the GBM AGILE study to support the development and commercialization of VAL-083 in GBM.
Kintara is also advancing its proprietary, late-stage photodynamic therapy platform that holds promise as a localized cutaneous, or visceral, tumor treatment as well as in other potential indications. REM-001 therapy has been previously studied in four Phase 2/3 clinical trials in patients with CMBC who had previously received chemotherapy and/or failed radiation therapy. With clinical efficacy to date of 80% complete responses of CMBC evaluable lesions, and with an existing robust safety database of approximately 1,100 patients across multiple indications, Kintara is advancing the REM-001 CMBC program to late-stage pivotal testing.
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