Nerviano Medical Sciences has secured FDA approval to conduct for the first time clinical trials of a novel antitumoral agent. The drug blocks Cdc7, a protein that is responsible for the uncontrolled proliferation of cancer cells. The preclinical data, recently published on the prestigious journal Nature Chemical Biology ( http://www.nature.com/nchembio/journal/v4/n6/full/nchembio.90.html), demonstrate that inhibition of Cdc7 induces tumor cell death and blocks the growth of various types of cancer in experimental animal models. The FDA approval will allow to conduct clinical phase I trials in cancer patients. “The news that the FDA has approved the clinical experimentation of our Cdc7 inhibitor – explains Dr. Francesco Colotta, NMS Oncology VP – first of all represents an acknowledgment of the quality and innovation of Italian research in the field of oncology. The discovery of this new drug results exclusively from the efforts of our investigators at the NMS R&D Site in Nerviano; thanks to their competence and passion we will be the first in the world to explore this new antitumor mechanism”.
