Data on Synta Pharmaceuticals' STA-9090 synthetic inhibitor of Hsp90 presented

Synta Pharmaceuticals Corp. (NASDAQ: SNTA), a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing, and commercializing small molecule drugs to treat severe medical conditions, today announced that preclinical data presented at the AACR-NCI-EORTC Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics shows that STA-9090, a novel, synthetic inhibitor of heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90), demonstrated strong activity in multiple tumor models, including lung cancer, gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST), prostate cancer, colon cancer, breast cancer, gastric cancer, pancreatic cancer, colon cancer, melanoma, acute myeloid leukemia, chronic myeloid leukemia, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, B-cell lymphoma, and multiple myeloma. Potent activity was shown in cancers resistant to treatment with imatinib (Gleevec®), sunitinib (Sutent®), and erlotinib (Tarceva®), including models with genetic mutations known to make those cancers highly resistant to treatment, such as the BCR-ABL T315I mutation in leukemias, the EGFR T790M mutation in lung cancer, and the KIT Ex 11 V654A and D820A mutations in GIST. STA-9090 was also shown to have potency superior to 17-AAG, the first generation, ansamycin-family Hsp90 inhibitor, across multiple tumor models and gene mutation profiles. Other results important for considering future clinical development with STA-9090 were presented, including results showing that STA-9090 enhances the activity of the widely used cancer drug paclitaxel.

“Taken together, the preclinical results presented at this conference demonstrate the potency, safety and broad activity profile of STA-9090, both as a single agent and in combination,” said Vojo Vukovic, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Medical Officer, Synta Pharmaceuticals. “There is a great deal of interest in the oncology community in the Hsp90 inhibitor category. Based on the strong scientific results we and others have seen with STA-9090, the superior safety and activity profile compared to first generation Hsp90 inhibitors, the limited success of first generation Hsp90 inhibitors in the clinic, and the encouraging clinical results seen to date with STA-9090, we believe STA-9090 can be the first Hsp90 inhibitor to realize the true potential of this category.”

STA-9090 is currently in four Phase 1 and Phase 1/2 trials. Synta expects to report data from these studies and initiate new trials across multiple tumor types later this year and in the first half of 2010.

Source Synta Pharmaceuticals