At the 2016 ASCO meeting over the weekend, Oncothyreon Inc (USA) (NASDAQ:ONTY) only provided a snippet of the results of the Phase 1b trial of its lead drug candidate ONT-380. More about the study will be discussed at the company’s R&D Day, which will be held on June 14 in New York City, according to a press release.
But the brief presentation of the Phase 1b data on ONT-380 still provided an important glimpse into the possible path of the compound. According to Oncothyreon Inc (USA) (NASDAQ:ONTY), ONT-380 demonstrated impressive efficacy and safety results in the study.
In the study, ONT-380 was tested on patients afflicted by metastatic breast cancer. The study enrolled patients who had previously received taxane and trastuzumab treatments. According to Oncothyreon, the study findings continued to show ONT-380 as a promising treatment for metastatic breast cancer. Additionally, the compound showed favorable safety profile in the patients who received it as part of the drug testing.
Pursuing combination regimen
Oncothyreon Inc (USA) (NASDAQ:ONTY)’s CEO, Scott Myers, said they would cooperate with other partners in the development of ONT-380. As for the Phase 2 trial of the compound, the CEO said that there focus will be on testing the compound as a combination regimen with trastuzumab and capecitabine.
It is worth mentioning that cancer researchers recently said that combination of multiple drugs could be more effective in fighting cancer than administering individual drugs separately. Some companies pursuing multiple drug combination treatment are already considering discounts on their combined medication to make them more affordable for patients, hospitals and insurers. That is important because one of the issues that have been raised about multiple drug combination regimens is the costs involved.
More to come
As of the case of ONT-380 and the path to developing it into a marketable product, Oncothyreon Inc (USA) (NASDAQ:ONTY) plans to share more details on the compound in the coming week. However, it is already whetting investor appetite with disclosures that Phase 1b study of the drug showed median progressive-free survival duration of 8.2 million.
