Cartherics to test new product for ovarian cancer in clinical trials

A unique ovarian cancer treatment that uses natural killer cells to target the deadly disease will soon be trialled in Melbourne – and there’s hope it could also be used to help those with endometriosis and dementia.

A much-anticipated new treatment for ovarian cancer discovered in Melbourne is also being explored for other conditions including endometriosis, Parkinson’s and even brain cancer.

Melbourne biotech company Cartherics will announce today that it has raised well over its target $15m from private investors to start clinical trials of its unique treatment in women with ovarian cancer.

The world-first clinical trial is of its natural killer (NK) cell product called CTH-401.

The company says the funding will also allow it to investigate using NK cells to treat other difficult conditions.

Cartherics researchers Liz Aliotta and Maree Hammett at work in the Melbourne laboratory. Image: Supplied

CTH-401 are programmed to seek out and destroy the cells that cause ovarian cancer. It is an off-the-shelf product expected to be inexpensive to mass produce.

“We’ve made NK cells that target ovarian cancer and we deliver them into the pelvic cavity where they kill off ovarian cancer,” Cartherics CEO Professor Alan Trounson said.

“What we’ve seen in our earlier studies is that it’s very efficient at killing off ovarian cancer. So, if the killing starts to work, then the body’s own system should come into play because you’ll get a release of a lot of antigens that will fire up the patient’s own immune system.”

The renowned IVF and stem cell pioneer said the same method could deliver a knockout blow to conditions such as endometriosis.

The clinical trials of the natural killer cell treatment will be for ovarian cancer, but it will also be investigated for other difficult conditions including endometriosis.

Prof Trounson said like ovarian cancer, endometriosis had few treatment options and he hopes the product can change that.

“We put our cells for ovarian cancer directly into the pelvic cavity,” he said. “That’s where endometriosis is. Potentially our product might actually attack endometriosis.

“We are looking at it. It’s a little uncertain yet, but the target (for endometriosis) seems to be expressed there.”

He said there had also been encouraging developments globally with the same kind of NK cells Cartherics was working with as potential treatments for neurological conditions such as Parkinson’s, dementia and some brain cancers.

Cartherics CEO and renowned IVF and stem cell pioneer Professor Alan Trounson. Image: Supplied

“NK cells are also one of the most promising and exciting developments in the fight against cancer,” Prof Trounson said.

He says the clinical trials hope to confirm CTH-401 will fundamentally change the treatment of ovarian cancer.

The first human trials will start next year and involve around 30 women with ovarian cancer from Melbourne and possibly Sydney and Adelaide.

Prof Trounson said the successful capital raising for them, in times of scant investment support in biotechnology, was welcomed.

“It shows confidence in the company for the delivery of effective therapies in ovarian cancer and other difficult diseases,” he said.

The goal of the initial clinical trials will be to confirm that the therapy works in 95 per cent of ovarian cancers because they have the TAG-72 cancer cell that the product is designed to target and kill.

“I am very happy with where the science is going and our manufacturing is very much on track,” Prof Trounson said.

At a Glance

■ Ovarian cancer is one of Australia’s deadliest female cancers with few treatment options. Around 65 per cent of women don’t survive

1200 Australian women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer every year

■ Endometriosis is an extremely painful condition suffered by around one in nine women globally and causes excruciating pain when tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows outside the uterus