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Novogen Launches Joint Venture Aimed At Developing Drugs
to Fight Ovarian Cancer
SYDNEY, Australia (November 7, 2013)– Novogen Limited (Australian Stock
Exchange: NRT and NASDAQ: NVGN), an Australian biotechnology company dedicated
to developing drugs that provide long-term remission through the successful control of
cancer stem cells, today announced a joint venture with Yale University dedicated to
developing personalized approaches to chemotherapy to fight ovarian cancer.
The joint venture, which will be based near Yale’s campus in New Haven, CT, will be
known as CanTx, Inc. Novogen will own 85% of the new company. Dr Graham Kelly will
be the CEO of the new company and the Board will comprise directors from both
Novogen and Yale.
CanTx will assume responsibility for advancing Novogen’s super-benzopyran drug
technology into the clinic for the treatment of ovarian cancer. The first product planned
on coming into the clinic in 2014 is a product to be administered intra-peritoneally to
women with ovarian cancer and designed to seek out cancer cells and deliver a payload
of a Novogen drug that has been shown to be highly cytotoxic against ovarian cancer
cells including ovarian cancer stem cells.
“There have been no new therapies for ovarian cancer in the last 30 years and a fresh
approach is urgently needed,” said Gil Mor, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Obstetrics and
Gynecology and Reproductive Science at Yale University School of Medicine. “Current
chemotherapy unfortunately only does half the job. It is reasonably effective at killing
the predominant somatic cancer cells, but by not killing the cancer stem cells, the cancer
is highly likely to recur.”
Dr. Mor, who will co-lead clinical development efforts for CanTx, is the first researcher
in the world to isolate ovarian cancer stem cells, the cells responsible for the initial
growth of ovarian tumors and their recurrence following chemotherapy.
“Around 70% of ovarian patients who respond to first round chemotherapy will
eventually experience tumor recurrence,” Dr. Mor added. “Our research with the
Novogen super-benzopyran family of drugs shows a high degree of activity against
ovarian cancer stem cells where no other approach has worked in our experience to
date. We believe that by combining this powerful new personalized approach with our
unique drug delivery model, we may be able to treat ovarian cancer and prevent its
recurrence.”
Dr. Mor and his team have developed an innovative targeted delivery system that allows
the entire dose of the injected drug to reach the intended target in mice. Typically, when
anti-cancer drugs are injected intravenously, approximately 3% of the drug actually
reaches the tumor.
“This joint venture with Yale brings a level of expertise, resources and firepower that is
unique in the field of ovarian cancer,” said Graham Kelly, PhD, Chief Executive Officer,
Novogen. “This program will be the first in the world dedicated to finding an effective
treatment for ovarian cancer, with the advantage that promising treatments are capable
of being moved quickly into clinical studies in months instead of years.”
“The first product is already undergoing a standard pre-clinical development program
and our goal is to have this in the clinic in 2014.”
“However the longer-term goal is to go one step further and provide personalized
chemotherapy, which means matching chemotherapy to the individual. To achieve this
lofty goal, you need two fundamentals: on the one hand, the ability to extract the cancer
stem cells from an individual cancer in order to assess the sensitivity of an individual
tumor to drugs; on the other hand, to have the drugs that can be modified to work
across individual tumor genotypes.”
“Yale and Novogen are uniquely positioned in having these two fundamentals. That is
why the two parties have come together and joined forces to combat this deadly
disease. Yale has the expertise in cancer stem cells culture; Novogen has the drug
technology capable of killing these tumor-initiating cells.”
Under this joint venture arrangement, Novogen retains full ownership of its drug
technology intellectual property (IP) and will grant CanTx access to that IP for drug
development purposes. Novogen will continue to explore applications of the same
technology platform in a range of other clinical indications including glioblastoma, along
with its anti-tropomyosin drug technology in the areas of prostate cancer, melanoma
and neuroblastoma.
About Ovarian Cancer
The American Cancer Society estimates that over 22,000 women will be diagnosed with
ovarian cancer during 2013 and 14,230 American women will die from the disease. It
ranks fifth in cancer deaths among women, accounting for more deaths than any other
cancer of the female reproductive system. This cancer mainly develops in older women.
About half of the women who are diagnosed with ovarian cancer are 63 years or older.
It is more common in white women that African-American women.
About Novogen
Novogen Ltd is a public Australian biotechnology company whose shares trade on both
the Australian Stock Exchange (symbol ‘NRT’) and NASDAQ (symbol ‘NVGN’). The
Company is based in Sydney, Australia and is focused on the development of novel anti-
cancer drugs based on two proprietary drug technologies - the super-benzopyran
chemical family and anti-tropomyosin drug technology.
About Cancer Stem Cells
Cancer stem cells are thought to be the tumor-initiating cells in many cancers
responsible for both the production of the tumor mass and metastasis. Cancer stem cells
have been confirmed in both ovarian cancers and glioblastoma. These cells are highly
resistant to chemotherapy and radiotherapy, a property thought responsible for tumor
recurrence following successful initial therapy.
Contact details
Dr Graham Kelly, Chief Executive Officer
Tel: 61 2 9476 0344
Fax: 61 2 9476 0388
Mobile: (61) 0429 854 390
16-20 Edgeworth David Ave Hornsby NSW 2077 AUSTRALIA
PO Box 2333 Hornsby Westfield NSW 1635 AUSTRALIA
Email: graham.kelly@novogen.com
Web: www.novogen.com
Dr Graham Kelly, Chief Executive Officer
Tel: 61 2 9476 0344
Fax: 61 2 9476 0388
Mobile: (61) 0429 854 390
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