Virax options biomarker for cancer treatment

Virax Holdings (ASX:VLA) has taken out an option to license a technology that could help select patients most likely to respond to the cancer treatment candidate it plans to acquire.

The company has entered an option agreement with Florida’s Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute covering a method for measuring baseline p27 expression level in breast tumours.

The p27 gene regulates cell division in healthy cells, but in some cancer types, including breast cancer, p27 is expressed at very low levels. This contributes to uncontrolled cell division, a major hallmark of cancer.

GGTI-2418 increases the levels of p27 in the nucleus to kill cancer cells. Patients whose tumours express very low levels of p27 are thus more likely to respond to the treatment, so using baseline nuclear p27 cell expression as a biomarker could identify those patients most set to benefit.

Announcing Virax’s plans for the p27 option, executive chairman Dr Wayne Millen said the company intends to “add this exciting tool to our portfolio shortly after completion of the Yale oncology assets [in a deal] which goes to shareholders for approval on 9 May”.

Virax announced last month that it has entered a deal to acquire Pathway Oncology, which has the exclusive worldwide licence to GGTI-2418 from Yale University. The drug candidate was developed by Yale and the Moffitt Cancer Center.

Breast cancer patients with low levels of p27 generally have a poor prognosis. In one study of 167 node-negative breast carcinomas, 66% of women had low nuclear p27.

Virax Holdings (ASX:VLA) shares were trading unchanged at $0.27 as of around 2 pm on Tuesday