As such, dogs are increasingly recognised as excellent models for human disease, Neurizon – PharmAust’s strategy is to develop MPL as a novel therapy to treat common cancers in dogs and then use this information to inform and de-risk its human clinical development programme.
As MPL is already registered as a parasiticide for use in animals Neurizon intends to significantly reduce the cost and time required to register a new treatment for pets. Further, PharmAust has shown that MPL is a cost-effective, safe and potent therapy which, meets the unique combination of criteria required to generate a commercial return in the companion animal drug market.
In a Phase I trial conducted in dogs diagnosed with solid tumours, Monepantel (MPL) was shown to be well tolerated and reported as beneficial to Quality of Life (QOL) in canines with cancer doses up to 25 mg/kg bw daily either as monotherapy or at 5 mg/kg bw in combination with carboplatin. Further, MPL dosed at 5 mg/kg bw daily in canines with “standard of care” treatment-refractory cancer effectively and significantly reduces blood levels of the cancer-specific marker p-Rbps6k.
In a Phase 2 pilot programme, dogs diagnosed with lymphoma were treated with MPL as front-line therapy with doses up to 25mg/kg/day for two weeks before transitioning to standard therapy. Results showed that 100% of dogs diagnosed with B-cell lymphoma developed the stable disease and showed evidence of tumour regression with minimal side-effects following MPL treatment. Lymphoma in dogs is very aggressive and, without treatment, the tumours are often fatal within weeks.
