New Trial Initiated for Fosciclopirox in Patients With Bladder Cancer

CicloMed LLC, a biotechnology company, announced the initiation of a phase 1b trial for patients with bladder cancer. The trial will examine effects of fosciclopirox in patients with newly diagnosed and recurrent bladder cancer who are scheduled for transurethral resection of bladder tumors.

“We believe that fosciclopirox provides strong potential to improve treatment outcomes for patients with bladder cancer,” said CicloMed CEO Tammy Sam in a release.

The trial is occurring at The University of Kansas Cancer Center and is supported by a National Cancer Institute (NCI) grant. The grant, which is a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant, was awarded to CicloMed in Sept. 2020.

“In addition to supporting the Phase 1B trial, the NCI SBIR grant enables us to study the relationships between targets modulated by fosciclopirox and treatment outcomes in patients receiving standard-of-care,” said Dr. John A. Taylor III. “We are reviewing our bladder cancer patient registry and biorepository comprising over 1,000 bladder tumor specimens from approximately 500 patients to identify patients who are more likely to benefit from fosciclopirox treatment.”

Taylor, a lead investigator on the trial, is director of urologic research, co-leader of the Drug Discovery, Delivery and Experimental Therapeutics Research Program and founder and director of the Leo and Anne Albert Institute for Bladder Cancer Care and Research.

Fosciclopirox inhibits bladder cancer from being initiated and progressing, according to preclinical models. It acts in part as a gamma-secretase complex inhibitor.

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