BRANFORD, Conn - On December 10, CuraGen Corporation announced that updated clinical trials for intravenous treatment with belinostat were reported at the American Society of Hematology 49th Annual Meeting held in Atlanta Georgia. The drug is in End-of-Phase II clinical trials for treatment of T-cell lymphomas. The company called the preliminary trial results “promising”.

CuraGen also reported that the results from the ongoing trial were submitted to the U.S. FDA as part of a meeting on November 29 to review the development of belinostat as a treatment of peripheral T-Cell lymphoma. Based on the meeting, CuraGen intends to mount a clinical trial to the FDS under a Special Protocol Assessment, which will allow them to start registering participants for clinical trial in early 2008.

In addition to the trials for T-Cell lymphomas, belinostat is being investigated for use with a number of other cancers, including mesothelioma, a rare cancer arising from exposure to airborne asbestos.

The company reports that they are very encouraged by overall activity, including responses to treatment with belionstat for patients with advanced T-Cell lymphomas. The intent is to open additional U.S. and international sites to increase participation and enrollment in the clinical trials. In addition, the company plans to define the next steps to explore an indication that belinostat along with carboplatin and paclitaxel is useful in treating recurrent ovarian cancer.

Belinostat is an HDAC inhibotor that is being investigated as a possible treatment in a wide range of solid tumors and malignancies. The trials include treatments both as a single agent drug (taken alone), and in combination with other known anti-cancer agents. Those agents include azacitidine, carboplatin, cis-reinoic acid, bortezomib, paclitaxel and idarubicin. HDAC inhibitors s are a mew class of anti-cancer treatments that target HDAC enzymes in cancer cells and have shown promise in arresting the growth of cancer cells, even in drug resistant subtypes of cancer. They also have been show to induce cell death, sending triggers that start cancer cells on the process of programmed cell death. The class of drugs also seems to promote differentiation and sensitize cancer cells to make them more vulnerable to other anti-cancer agents.

Currently, intravenous belinostat is being evaluated in a number of clinical trials as a potential treatment for a range of cancers that are particularly resistant to drug therapies, including T-cell and B-cell lymphomas, soft tissue sarcoma, AML and mesothelioma.

Mesothelioma is considered an especially difficult cancer to treat because of its relative rarity and because it often goes undiagnosed until the cancer has advanced to the final stages. Treatments for mesothelioma are generally limited to palliative treatments at that point. The HDAC inhibitors represent a promising line of research in the fight against mesothelioma because they specifically target cancer cells and leave healthy cells alone. This represents a considerable advance over other treatments which are unable to differentiate between the two and kill off healthy cells as well as cancerous ones.

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