Phio Pharmaceuticals Corp. announced the poster presentation of two key preclinical studies of its INTASYL compound PH-894 at the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics in Boston, Massachusetts on October 11th -15th. The first study shows that melanoma cells treated with its PH-894 compound makes them more recognizable to the immune cells.

Specifically, the treatment results in an increase in the tumor marker MART-1 (Melanoma tumor-associated antigen) allowing for better recognition and potentially increased killing by T cells. Local treatment with PH-894 presents a strategy to decrease BRD4 expression and upregulate MART-1 expression to increase immune response to cancer cells while reducing toxicities associated with systemic therapies. This study supports further development of PH-894 for injectable solid tumor indications such as melanoma.

The second study demonstrates the effectiveness of PH-894 as an antitumor cytotoxic agent (directly killing tumor cells). The addition of PH-894 to cells in vitro elicited concentration-associated apoptosis of all human cancer cell lines tested, including head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), breast cancer, lung cancer, glioblastoma, melanoma, colon cancer, ovarian cancer, and cervical cancer. INTASYL PH-894, a precision self-delivering RNAi therapy, is administered locally and is designed to provide a novel, safer strategy to realize the enormous therapeutic potential of BRD4 inhibition for cancer that has been difficult to attain for small molecule modalities that rely on systemic approaches that generate significant toxicity.