IOTA Pharmaceuticals Announce the Creation of a Glioblastoma Drug Bank to Support and Accelerate New Research Into Brain Cancer Therapy

CAMBRIDGE, England, May 23, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

IOTA Pharmaceuticals Ltd today announced the creation of a new resource, the Glioblastoma (GBM) Drug Bank, to accelerate drug discovery research in brain cancer, especially glioblastoma. Creation of the GBM Drug Bank has been made possible by funds received from The Brain Tumour Charity, based in the UK, and is part of the Dutch-British WINDOW Consortium for glioblastoma drug discovery.

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The purpose of the GBM Drug Bank is to accelerate international scientific research into glioblastoma by assembling annotated sets of approved drugs and exploratory compounds to support testing in preclinical glioblastoma studies. 

Dr David Bailey, leader of IOTA's glioblastoma drug discovery program, comments: "Glioblastoma is a particularly intransigent cancer for which new treatments are urgently needed. The WINDOW approach is to explore multiple avenues of attacking the disease using drugs and drug combinations. As part of the WINDOW initiative, IOTA is assembling annotated drug panels that can be used, either on their own or within specific therapy combinations, as a resource for glioblastoma researchers worldwide." 

Dr David Jenkinson, Chief Scientific Officer of The Brain Tumour Charity (UK), commented: "The GBM Drug Bank is the first deliverable from the WINDOW programme, underpinning the establishment of an integrated preclinical drug discovery platform for glioblastoma." 

Glioblastoma is the most common and aggressive form of brain cancer. Each year, around 3,200 patients are diagnosed with this disease in the UK and the Netherlands. Despite improving knowledge of its genetic causes, it remains stubbornly incurable, with current treatment regimens resulting in an average survival of 12 months from diagnosis. Part of the poor prognosis of glioblastoma is due to tumour heterogeneity: different parts of the tumour have different characteristics and will respond differently to therapy. As a result, treatments may kill some of the tumour cells, but these cells are quickly replaced by treatment resistant tumour cell populations that continue to grow.

The GBM Drug Bank is designed to expedite research into drugs which already show promise in preclinical studies of glioblastoma, including 132 FDA approved drugs. IOTA is releasing both the annotated Drug Bank, and drug panels based on the GBM Drug Bank, to researchers on a world-wide basis to accelerate glioblastoma research. To learn more about the GBM Drug Bank, please visit http://www.iotapharma.com.

Contact: Dr David Bailey, +44-776-965-8734, [email protected]

SOURCE IOTA Pharmaceuticals Ltd