Aussie scientists license promising new cancer drug to Merck

Australia-based Cancer Therapeutics CRC (CTx) just entered into a $730 million (AUD$1 million) deal with US pharmaceutical giant Merck to develop a promising new cancer drug. Merck will undertake the human trial of the new drug with the possibility, if the trial is successful, to sell the drug commercially in different countries.

The drug inhibits the protein PRMT5 linked with different types of cancer such as colorectal, breast, lung and cell lymphoma, says Dr Tom Peat from CSIRO, one of the collaborators of CTx. The others are Monash University, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute and Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre.

Peat explains that patients who those types of cancer usually have high levels of that protein and is linked also to poor survival rates. The CTx used CSIRO’s recombinant protein production facilities to produce samples of the PRMT5, crystallise it for structure-based drug design and support CTx’s pre-commercial investigation and trial, reports Skynews.

After the trials, the consortium developed a drug that binds the PRMT5 protein. The drug was able to target the cancerous cells. It would also be used to treat patients with blood disorders, reports Techly. That’s because PRMT inhibitors switch on important genes in blood development that could provide treatment options which could modify the ailment for patients suffering from sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia.

Peat adds, “Access to high-quality protein is absolutely critical in structural biology approaches too drug discovery.”

With the deal, CTx would receive most of the financial returns from the drug, while the rest would benefit Britain-based Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research Technology which supported the project. Dr Warwick Tong, chief executive of CTx, says, “This is a great result for Australian science and further demonstrates what can be achieved when science and commercialization capabilities unite.”