Filamon secures exclusive licence for groundbreaking anti-cancer drug

Filamon was awarded an exclusive license for a groundbreaking experimental anti-cancer drug developed by Australian university scientists.

Australian clinical-stage drug development company, Filamon Limited, announced that it has been awarded an exclusive licence to a ground-breaking, experimental anti-cancer drug discovered by a team of Australian university scientists.

The drug, FLM-BT2, joins two other drug candidates (FLM-c2 and FLM-JG1) at Filamon to create a world-first technology platform aimed at blocking the forces that drive cancers to turn from a slow-growing, non-lethal disease into the fastgrowing, aggressive disease responsible for an estimated 10 million deaths each year.

Filamon Executive Chairman and CEO, Dr Graham Kelly, said, “After a career spanning 50 years in cancer research, the biggest advance in cancer treatment I have seen is the recent realisation that killing cancer cells is only half the battle.

“The other half is shutting down the external support coming from surrounding healthy tissue. Doing both is where we are seeing the possibility of real progress being made in turning cancer from lethal to non-lethal.

“In-licencing FLM-BT2 is the final piece of the puzzle. This is the drug trifecta that we have been searching for,” Dr Kelly said.

Filamon has identified what it believes are three of the main drivers of that external growth support and set about finding drugs capable of blocking them.

All three drugs are linked by a common purpose of blocking inflammation, a key promoter of tumour growth and spread. Each of them targets different aspects of inflammation, producing a sum total effect designed to restrict cancer cells to a slow-growing, non-lethal state.

The three separate actions of the unique compound FLM-BT2

1. It blocks tumour invasion and growth by inhibiting key oncogenic enymes (MEK and ERK)
2. It deprives the cancer of a blood supply by blocking the development of cancer-associated new blood vessels (angiogenesis) with leaky behaviour (vascular permeability)
3. It increases the ability of the immune system to attack cancer by blocking the expression of the immune checkpoint protein, PD-1, on T lymphocytes.

FLM-BT2 is currently expected to enter the clinic in 2024.

The other two Filamon drug candidates (FLM-c2, FLM-JG1) are already clinical stage and the subject of planned Phase 1b/2a clinical studies in 2023.

The concept behind FLM-c2, FLM-JG1 and FLM-BT2 is they be used in combination with standard anti-cancer drugs like chemotherapy and immuno-oncology drugs to address both sides of the cancer equation – the cancer cell and its environment.

Filamon believes that this 3-drug strategy will apply to most forms of cancer, but plans to focus its proof-of-concept efforts in the first instance on prostate cancer and melanoma.

Filamon currently is conducting an early funding round. Offer details and further information can be found by visiting the Company website at www.filamon.com

Media release from Filamon. Note: Content has been edited for style and length.

Ritchelle Drilon

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Ritchelle is a Content Producer for Healthcare Channel, Australia’s premier resource of information for healthcare.

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