Alchemia Oncology Pty Ltd.

As an approach to improve efficacy and provide clinical benefit to cancer patients undergoing chemotherapeutic treatment regimens, Alchemia Oncology has developed a novel means for delivering anti-cancer agents to tumours. The drug delivery platform is based on the use of hyaluronic acid (HA), a novel excipient, in which, formulation with HA results in optimisation of cytotoxic drug uptake and retention within solid tumours. In the specific example of HA-Irinotecan, this new formulation of irinotecan has demonstrated enhanced efficacy in both nonclinical and early clinical studies.
The current study is an investigation into the use of HA-Irinotecan in a Phase II single arm trial of FOLF(HA)iri plus cetuximab in irinotecan-naïve second line patients with KRAS wild type metastatic colorectal cancer. The study objectives are to confirm the safety and efficacy of FOLF(HA)iri plus cetuximab as second-line therapy in irinotecan-naïve metastatic colorectal cancer patients.
It is expected that the study recruit approximately 40-50 patients in 1 year with subsequent treatment and follow up; thus the trial will run for approximately 2-3 years.

Trial design:
Phase III, FOLFIRI versus FOLF(HA)iri (the FOLFIRI regimen with "Hyaluronic acid-Irinotecan" or "HA-Irinotecan") regimen.
Patients with mCRC (metastatic colorectal cancer), 2nd/3rd line irinotecan naïve.
Randomized 1:1, double-blinded, multi-centre, multi-national (Australia, Bulgaria, Poland, Serbia, Russia, Ukraine and the United Kingdom).
Dosing regimen:
Irinotecan (180 mg/m2) or HA-Irinotecan (180 mg/m2), IV, over 90 minutes, day 1 (in patients > 75 years of age, the irinotecan and HA-Irinotecan dose in must be reduced to 150 mg/m2).
Leucovorin, 400 mg/m2, or levoleucovorin, 200 mg/m2, IV over 90 minutes with irinotecan.
5-fluorouracil (5-FU), 400 mg/m2 IV bolus day 1, then 1200 mg/m2/day x 2 days (total 2400 mg/m2 over 46-48 hours) continuous infusion.
Repeat every 2 weeks for 8 months.
Patient accrual over approximately 12-14 months.
Monitoring to 18 months post-randomization.
390 patients.
Progression Free Survival (PFS) primary endpoint.
Safety analysis on the initial 20 patients.