Provectus Biopharmaceuticals, Inc., a company specializing in developing oncology and dermatology therapies, has announced that clinical data on its investigative new drug PV-10 for the treatment of melanoma will be presented at the 2014 Beijing International Melanoma Congress.
The study, titled “Current Perspectives on Intralesional Therapies”, will be presented by Dr. Sanjiv Agarwala of the St. Luke’s Cancer Center, who recently presented data at American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting, where he revealed the results of an open label Phase 2 clinical trial that enrolled 80 patients with locally advanced cutaneous disease refractory to a median of six previous interventions. Patients who received treatment with intralesional PV-10 injections had an overall response rate of 71%, and 50% achieved a complete response.
PV-10 is a 10 % solution of Rose Bengal, a stain commonly used to distinguish between healthy and necrotic tissue in the cornea, which has been designed by Provectus Pharmaceuticals for injection into solid tumors such as melanoma, breast and liver cancers, this way reducing the potential for systemic side effects. This drug received orphan drug designations from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its melanoma and hepatocellular carcinoma indications.
“I am very pleased to be presenting our data at the Beijing International Melanoma Congress. I am grateful to the organizers, Peking University Cancer Hospital and the Chinese Society of Clinical Oncology, for their invitation to address one of the most important assemblies of melanoma experts in the world.” Dr. Agarwala mentioned in a Provectus press release.
“Provectus is pleased that Dr. Agarwala is attending the Beijing International Melanoma Congress to present data on PV-10 as an intralesional treatment for melanoma. We recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Sinopharm-China State Institute of Pharmaceutical Industry, the leader among all pharmaceutical research institutes in China, and Sinopharm A-THINK Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., the only injectable anti-tumor drug research and development, manufacture and distribution integrated platform within Sinopharm Group. The purpose of the MOU is to negotiate a licensing agreement to bring PV-10 to the Chinese market. China’s economic growth and demographics have combined to make it prominent in cancer treatment, and we believe that these trends will only serve to make it increasingly important in the coming years,” stated Dr. Craig Dees, PhD, CEO of Provectus.
