Krakow, Poland – 16 April 2018 – Selvita, a clinical stage drug discovery and development company focused on innovative medicines for oncology patients, has published recent results of a research concerning therapeutic potential of SEL24 in Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML).

The article titled “A novel, dual pan-PIM/FLT3 inhibitor SEL24 exhibits broad therapeutic potential in Acute Myeloid Leukemia” was published online in Oncotarget, on March 30, 2018.

SEL24 is a Selvita-developed first-in-class orally available dual PIM/FLT3 kinase inhibitor with a unique activity profile, currently investigated for the treatment of patients with relapsed/refractory (R/R) AML. The program entered First-in-Human study in early 2017. In March 2017, Selvita signed a global license agreement with Menarini Group for further research, development, manufacture and commercialization of SEL24/MEN1703 worldwide.

The authors show that SEL24 specifically inhibits PIM- and FLT3-ITD- related pathways and exhibits significantly broader anti-tumor activity in AML models than selective FLT3-ITD or PIM inhibitors.

“FLT3-ITD is one of the most common genetic lesions in AML patients, however resistance to treatment with FLT3 kinase inhibitors appears very quickly. It’s the PIM kinases which are thought to be major drivers of the resistance phenotype and their inhibition in relapsed samples restores cell sensitivity to FLT3 inhibitors.

So far our research has produced results showing that not only SEL24 demonstrates marked activity in cells bearing FLT3 tyrosine kinase domain mutations that lead to FLT3 inhibitor resistance, but also inhibits the growth of a broad panel of AML cell lines in xenograft models with a clear pharmacodynamic-pharmacokinetic relationship.

This unique dual activity of SEL24 underscores its therapeutic potential and makes it a potentially a breakthrough treatment for AML patients.“ – comments dr Krzysztof Brzózka, Chief Scientific Officer and Executive VP at Selvita.