Cyclacel Pharmaceuticals poised to report data from ongoing clinical study for its cancer drug

Cyclacel Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:CYCCP) said Thursday it has accelerated its drug testing for different treatments of breast and other cancers in the fourth quarter and expects to report data from ongoing clinical studies.

The company estimates that its cash resources will be sufficient to fund operations until the second quarter of 2020. 

“With estimated capital on hand until the end of 2020 we look forward to reporting data from our ongoing clinical studies and realizing shareholder value from our targeted drug pipeline,” said Cyclacel Pharmaceuticals CEO Spiro Rombotis.

READ: Cyclacel Pharmaceuticals ramps up testing for its cancer drugs in third quarter

The company is executing its targeted oncology strategy with the objective of delivering data readouts from multiple clinical programs.

“At the heart of our business strategy is targeting patients with overexpression of cancer resistance proteins, including Mcl-1, MYC, cyclin E, and inherited mutations in DNA damage pathways, such as BRCA,” said Rombotis. “We believe CYC065 is the first investigational drug to have consistently demonstrated durable suppression of Mcl-1 at tolerable dosing in patients.”

The company has treated patients in two out of four studies under its three-year strategic alliance agreement with the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center enabling clinical evaluation of three Cyclacel medicines in patients with haematological malignancies.

The alliance with MD Anderson allows the company to parallel track the development of its drugs in a cash-sparing manner while utilizing MD Anderson’s expertise to recruit patients across four studies.

The Phase 1 study looks at a combination of CYC065 and venetoclax in relapsed/refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

There’s another ongoing Phase 1 study of CYC140 in advanced leukemias.

“Protocols for the other two studies have been finalized and will be submitted to institutional review boards,” said Rombotis. He said the first two patients with BRCA mutant breast cancer were treated in the Phase 1b/2 trial (IST) of sapacitabine with olaparib study.

Latest results

For the quarter ended December 2018, the company posted a net loss of $2.1 million and $7.5 million for the full year.

As of December 31, 2018, the company had cash and cash equivalents of $17.5 million, not including net proceeds of approximately $4.1 million from a stock sales agreement.

The Berkeley Heights, New Jersey-based pharmaceutical company develops medicines for the treatment of cancer.

Cyclacel shares closed on Monday 4% lower at $1.20 and were unchanged in extended trade.

Contact Uttara Choudhury at [email protected]

Follow her on Twitter: @UttaraProactive

Story by ProactiveInvestors