RE: Big day ahead!12 Oct 2022 09:21
Proactive Investors:
Evgen Pharma PLC (AIM:EVG) said changes to its glioblastoma programme are expected to extend its cash runway by more than a year.
It said it will pull the trigger on the trial of its lead asset, SFX-01, in healthy volunteers to assess its pharmacokinetic its pharmacodynamic properties.
Specifically, it wants to see how the new coating for the pill performs. Top-line data are expected in the first half of next year.
It has also taken the decision to embark on an investigator-sponsored clinical study (ISS) to assess the drug’s potential in glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer while carrying out further pre-clinical work.
Evgen said it had been advised to take this route by experts in the field, and added the approach would allow it to ‘de-risk’ a subsequent phase II trial.
It will allow researchers to assess with ‘more clarity’ how the active ingredient, sulforaphane. enters the tumour and interacts with it at a molecular level.
Carrying out the ISS will be Dr Marjolein Geurts, neuro-oncologist at the Erasmus University Medical Centre, in the Netherlands, who is at the forefront of glioblastoma research.
The company said it would look for partnering opportunities while the ISS was being undertaken.
The impact of this change of tack is to push out the cash runway to at least the end of the fourth quarter of 2024 rather than the third quarter of next year. This will extend into 2025 if a deal inked with Swiss drug developer Stalicla earlier this week generates the envisaged milestone payments.
“We continue to explore partnering opportunities in the context of a considerably longer cash runway, with the prospect of significant further non-dilutive cash inflows from our partners," said Evgen chief executive Dr Huw Jones.