SYDNEY, Nov. 26, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Novogen Limited (ASX: symbol NRT; Nasdaq: symbol NVGN) today announced the filing of a family of provisional patents in the US covering anti-tropomyosin (ATM) drug technology.
ATM drugs represent an entirely novel approach to anti-cancer therapy, blocking the ability of cancer cells to divide and doing so in a highly cancer-specific way. Based on their action, ATMs belong to a class of anti-cancer drug known as anti-mitotics. Current anti-mitotic drugs are taxanes and vinca alkaloids and remain among the most widely prescribed anti-cancer drugs after 40 years of use.
"Filing these patents represents a critical step for the Company in protecting such a potentially valuable piece of intellectual property," said Graham Kelly, PhD, Novogen CEO. "Taxanes continue to dominate anti-cancer therapy even though they recently came off-patent. We believe that ATM drugs have the ability to replace taxanes and to become the next generation of anti-mitotic drugs."
Tropomyosin is a protein found in actin filaments, a key component of the cytoskeleton of a cell. Actin filaments provide a cell with the ability to contract. One of the ways that contraction serves a cell is during cell division when separation of the two daughter cells occurs by the formation of a ring known as the contraction ring. When that ring tightens, the two cells effectively separate.
ATM drugs target a particular isoform of tropomyosin known as Tm5NM1 on which cancer cells are highly dependent. Targeting this particular tropomyosin isoform prevents formation of the contraction ring and hence the ability of the cancer cells to divide.
"The current generation of anti-mitotic drugs, despite their widespread use, comes with two key negatives," Dr. Kelly added. "The first of those is a serious side-effect profile. The second is that many types of cancer are inherently insensitive to them. ATM drugs to date are showing an apparent lack of serious toxicity as well as an ability to kill cancer cells that are insensitive to taxanes."
Novogen is focusing its ATM drug development program on prostate cancer, melanoma and children's cancers where it would be used as a monotherapy, as well as adjuvant therapy in combination with the Company's super-benzopyran drug technology in order to provide comprehensive assault on the full hierarchy of cells within tumors.
About Novogen
Novogen Ltd is a public Australian biotechnology company whose shares trade on both the Australian Stock Exchange (symbol 'NRT') and NASDAQ (symbol 'NVGN'). The Company is based in Sydney, Australia and is focused on the development of novel anti-cancer drugs based on two proprietary drug technologies - the super-benzopyran chemical family and anti-tropomyosin drug technology.
Tm5NM1
Tm5NM1 is one of approximately 40 different isoforms of the protein, tropomyosin, that occur naturally in the human body. Tropomyosins combine with the protein, actin, to form actin filaments, making up part of the cell's cytoskeleton. Human cancer cells have been shown to be highly dependent on Tm5NM1 for their survival and ability to divide.
About Super-Benzopyrans (SBPs)
SBPs are small molecules constructed around a simple benzopyran scaffold. Members of this family of drugs are showing high potency against both cancer stem cells and somatic cancer cells recovered from both ovarian cancers and glioblastoma cancers.
SOURCE Novogen Limited