Thinly traded nano cap Rexahn Pharmaceuticals (REXN +52.4%) is up on an 24x surge in volume, albeit on turnover of only 899K shares, in apparent response to encouraging preclinical data on pipeline candidate RX-5902. The results were just published in the journal Molecular Cancer Therapeutics.
A panel of 18 triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) cell lines exposed to RX-5902 showed potent antiproliferative effects. In a subset of cell lines, it induced apoptosis (cell death), G2-M cell cycle arrest and aneuploidy (abnormal number of chromosomes).
In an animal model (nude mice), RX-5902 showed dose-proportional pharmacokinetics with a decrease in β-catenin.
Phase 2-stage RX-5902 (supinoxin) is an orally available small molecule inhibitor of a protein overexpressed in cancer cells called phosphorylated-p68 (P-68) which modulates an intracellular signaling pathway called β-catenin/Wnt that plays a key role in cancer cell growth and proliferation. P-68 up-regulates cancer-related genes so inhibiting its action decreases cancer cell growth and proliferation.
On another note, in late September, the company announced its intent to explore strategic alternatives.
At the end of June, it had $16.3M in quick assets while operations consumed $6.2M in H1.
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