Rediscovering a lost chemotherapeutic

Race Oncology is currently focused on the development of bisantrene, which had been the subject of over 40 clinical trials in the 1980s and 1990s as part of Lederle’s search for a safer anthracycline (a widely used class of chemotherapeutics that is associated with cardiotoxicity). Despite positive efficacy data across a variety of cancers, especially AML (it was even approved for the treatment of AML in France in 1990 but never commercialised), development stopped after Lederle was sold to Wyeth and then Wyeth was sold to Pfizer. Race will be developing bisantrene for relapsed/refractory AML and expects to initiate a pivotal trial for approval in the US around the end of 2018.