Drug developed at the University of Arizona could fight dog cancer

The University of Arizona has exclusively licensed the rights to a cancer drug developed by a former faculty member to a California company for development as a treatment for cancer in dogs.

Anivive Lifesciences plans to develop the drug, known as PX-866, for solid tumors in canines.

The drug shows promise for treatment of skin, bone and other dog cancers, said Tech Launch Arizona, the UA’s technology commercialization arm.

PX-866 was developed in the 2000s by former UA researcher Garth Powis in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh, Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute and Cascadian Pharmaceuticals.

The drug is derived from wortmannin, a natural product that inhibits an enzyme that is key to the progression of canine cancers including malignant melanoma, osteosarcoma and hemangiosarcoma.

The drug was previously licensed out for human clinical trials by Oncothyreon Inc. a Seattle-based company that is now known as Cascadian Pharmaceuticals. But after completing two Phase 2 clinical trials using PX-866 in combination with other drugs against three different tumor types, the company said the results didn’t meet predetermined criteria for further development of the drug.

Enter Anivive Lifesciences, whose core mission is to “find and leverage novel human therapeutics and repurpose them for unmet needs in veterinary medicine.”

The company noted that the Center for Veterinary Medicine at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved only two drugs to treat cancer in dogs, for mast-cell and breast cancers.

“We would like to get some veterinary drugs approved so that vets have a much higher degree of confidence that the drugs are not only safe but effective,” said veterinarian David Bruyette, Anivive’s chief veterinary officer, noting that many vets are now using human cancer drugs in “off-label” treatments.

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Bruyette said traditional methods for treating canine cancers include surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and immunotherapy alone or in combination, each with their own set of side effects.

Studies on PX-866 included data from animal research that can be used to advance the drug for veterinary use, he said.

“There’s quite a bit of preclinical data in dogs that was used in the development of PX-866 in cancer treatment of people,” Bruyette said. “It will allow us to advance rather quickly through the necessary steps and requirements the FDA has for approval.”

Dylan Balsz, an entrepreneur and investor who co-founded Anivive with Warren Rickard in 2015, said Anivive is well-funded with investments from the principals and backing from some major pharmaceutical companies.

Anivive hopes to clear clinical trials and bring the new drug to market by 2019.

The next step is pilot studies to identify which types of tumors to target initially, he added.

“The drug looked very, very promising in the (earlier) clinical trials,” said Paul Eynott, Tech Launch Arizona licensing manager for the UA College of Science.

Separately, Anivive is collaborating with the UA on a vaccine for valley fever for dogs.