(Alliance News) - Tiziana Life Sciences PLC on Friday said it has obtained a US patient for the use of Milciclib in combination with tyrosine kinase inhibitors as a treatment for hepatocellular carcinoma and other cancers.
Shares in Tiziana were up 4.7% at 164.40 pence in London in morning trading.
The patent, granted by the US Patent & Trademark Office, will be published September 1 as patent number 10,758,541. It has been granted to London-based biotechnology company Tiziana for Milciclib plus tyrosine kinase inhibitors like Sorafenib, Regorafenib, and Lenvatinib.
Hepatocellular carcinoma, a type of liver cancer, has multiple underlying mechanisms, and patients often become resistant to monotherapies of existing therapeutics. There is a need for combination drug treatment approaches that target different mechanisms.
Tiziana recent presented two posters on clinical evaluation of Milciclib at the American Society of Clinical Oncology 2020 event. This included a poster on a phase 2a clinical evaluation of the drug which indicated the treatment was well tolerated and "produced encouraging clinical activity in sorafenib-resistant patients".
The second poster was on the evaluation of Milciclib, combined with tyrosine kinase inhibitor Regorafenib, in liver transplant patients with hepatocellular carcinoma recurrence. The combination proved to be safe and produced a "promising clinical response".
Kunwar Shailubhai, Tiziana's chief executive & chief scientific officer, said: "Advanced cases of patients with [hepatocellular carcinoma] have limited therapeutic options because of the heterogeneity of the multiple mechanisms underlying the development of drug resistance and limited clinical responses. Thus, combination of drugs with different mechanism of actions are necessary to achieve superior clinical outcome.
"We are delighted that we now have this key patent on use of Milciclib in combination with other HCC drugs, including a [tyrosine kinase inhibitor]. Issuance of this patent strengthens our clinical strategy as we move forward with the combination of Milciclib and a TKI for the clinical evaluation of advanced cases of HCC as well as in patients with recurrent HCC after liver transplantation."
By Anna Farley; annafarley@alliancenews.com
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