Context Therapeutics Announces IND Clearance for ONA-XR in Recurrent Endometrial Cancer
PHILADELPHIA, PA, Sept. 03, 2020 — Context Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to advancing medicines for hormone driven cancers, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared the Company’s Investigational New Drug (IND) application for ONA-XR in combination with the antiestrogen anastrozole in patients with recurrent endometrial cancer. Saveri Bhattacharya, DO and Russell Schilder, MD of The Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson Health are the study’s Co-Primary Investigators.
The Phase 2 trial will include patients who have progesterone receptor positive (PR+) recurrent endometrial cancer. Patients will be administered the combination of onapristone extended release (ONA-XR) and anastrozole. The primary endpoint will be overall response rate (ORR), which is the proportion of patients who have either a complete or partial response. To further characterize the activity of ONA-XR, secondary endpoints will include duration of response, clinical benefit rate, and progression-free survival (PFS). In addition, this study will evaluate the safety and pharmacological profile of ONA-XR in these patients, as well as biomarker analyses to explore predictive factors of response to ONA-XR.
“Currently, there are limited therapeutic options to treat advanced endometrial cancer. Recent preclinical findings, together with Phase 1 study results in patients with advanced PR+ ovarian and endometrial cancers, give us reason to believe that ONA-XR can help these women with PR+ gynecological cancers,” said Tarek Sahmoud, MD, PhD, Chief Medical Officer of Context Therapeutics. [1],[2]. “We believe ONA-XR can make a meaningful difference for patients in the trial.”
About Onapristone Extended Release
ONA-XR (onapristone extended release) is a potent and specific antagonist of the progesterone receptor that is orally administered. Currently, there are no approved therapies that selectively target PR+ cancers. Preliminary preclinical and clinical data suggest that ONA-XR has anticancer activity by inhibiting progesterone receptor binding to chromatin, downregulating cancer stem cell mobilization and blocking immune evasion. ONA-XR is currently the subject of an ongoing Phase 2 clinical trial in progesterone receptor positive ovarian cancer. Additional Phase 2 clinical trials in breast and endometrial cancers will initiate in 2020. ONA-XR is an investigational drug that has not been approved for marketing by any regulatory authority.
About Context Therapeutics®
Context Therapeutics LLC is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company advancing medicines to treat hormone driven cancers. Context’s lead program is ONA-XR, an investigational Phase 2 drug that is being developed for progesterone receptor positive (PR+) breast, ovarian and endometrial cancers. For more information on Context, visit www.contexttherapeutics.com.
Company Contact:
Martin Lehr
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer
info@contexttherapeutics.com
Media Contact:
Heather Anderson
6 Degrees
980-938-0260
handerson@6degreespr.com
Source: Context Therapeutics LLC
[1] Huang, Y, et al. (2018) Inhibiting nuclear phospho-progesterone receptor enhances antitumor activity of onapristone in uterine cancer. Molecular cancer therapeutics, 17(2), 464-73.
[2] Cottu PH, et al. (2018) Phase I study of onapristone, a type I antiprogestin, in female patients with previously treated recurrent or metastatic progesterone receptor-expressing cancers. PLoS ONE 13(10): e0204973.