Ovarian cancer

With more than 65,000 incidences annually in the seven largest markets alone (USA, EU-big 5 and Japan), ovarian cancer is one of the most lethal forms of cancer among women. As symptoms are difficult to discover, the disease is often diagnosed at a late stage when the disease has progressed. About 65% of diagnosed cases are in stage III-IV and at this stage, probability of five years survival is about 30%.

First line standard of care is to conduct surgery, followed by chemotherapy with carboplatin and paclitaxel. Chemotherapy aims to cause damage to the cancer cell’s DNA and thereby inhibit tumor growth and disease progression. However, a major challenge is that cancer cells develop the ability to repair the DNA damage caused by chemotherapy and thereby develop resistance. Approximately 70% of all patients experience relapse from chemotherapy within three years.

In the event of a relapse, the continued treatment is decided based on perceived platinum-resistance. Patients judged to be platinum-sensitive are usually re-challenged with platinum, often in combination with other drugs. If the patient is believed to be platinum resistant, other therapies are introduced. For every relapse, the probability of treatment effect is reduced. As a consequence, there is a large medical need to increase the sensitivity for platinum-chemotherapy, which is the objective for treatment with rugocrixan.

Even though ovarian cancer is a highly competitive field, with many agents in the pipeline, Kancera believes that there is a clear position for rugocrixan in second-third line for treatment of patients with carboplatin relapse.