According to a story from streetinsider.com, the Joseph Ahmed Foundation and Tyme Technologies, Inc. recently announced that the first patient has been dosed in a phase 2 clinical trial. This trial is testing Tyme’s experimental drug SM-88 (also known as racemetyrosine) as a treatment for sarcomas (a rare cancer) that are considered high risk. The administration of the drug took place at the Sarcoma Oncology Center.
About Sarcomas
Sarcoma is a term to describe any type of cancer that arises from mesenchymal cells. These cells are types of connective tissue which plays a major role in embryonic development. As a whole, sarcomas in humans are relatively rare. Cancers which affect tissue such as bone, fat, muscle, blood vessels, and cartilage are all considered sarcomas. There are a great many types of sarcoma; an example is soft tissue sarcoma, and even this type has a diverse array of sub-variants. Treating sarcomas often takes a long time. Surgery is often an essential component of treatment, and chemotherapy can also provide significant benefit for many patients, such as those with osteosarcoma. Only about 15,000 new cases of sarcoma appear per year in the US. To learn more about sarcoma, click here.
About The Trial
High risk sarcomas include forms such as Ewing’s sarcoma, a cancer that most often appears in teens. The trial is expected to include a total of 24 patients, who will be divided into two equal sized treatment cohorts. One cohort will test SM-88 on its own as a treatment for patients with clinically advanced disease; The other will test the drug as a maintenance therapy following earlier treatment in Ewing’s sarcoma patients that are at a great risk of either disease progression or relapse. Primary endpoints for the trial include overall response, progression free survival, and evidence of stable disease; secondary measures will include rate of clinical benefit, overall survival, and response duration.
The Joseph Ahmed Foundation is providing critical support for the study by both contributing funds and providing direct support to the patients themselves.
Hopefully the results of this study will point to the continued development of SM-88 as a treatment for high risk sarcomas.
