NEW YORK – Novellus on Monday said it is working with Tempus to accelerate patient enrollment for its BRAF inhibitor program.
Jerusalem-based drug developer Novellus licensed its BRAF inhibitor, PLX8394, from Daiichi Sankyo subsidiary Plexxikon in June. The company is currently recruiting patients into a Phase I/IIa study of the drug in patients with advanced unresectable solid tumors. While there are already approved treatments for melanoma, lung, and colorectal cancer patients with BRAF V600-mutated tumors, in its Phase I/IIa trial, Novellus wants to enroll those who don't have any targeted therapy options, such as glioma patients with BRAF V600 mutations and patients with solid tumors with non-V600 mutations.
In this partnership, Novellus will join Tempus's TIME Trial network, a service that uses a proprietary technology platform to analyze molecular and clinical data on cancer patients and match them with trials. More than 50 provider networks and 2,500 oncologists are now part of the TIME Trial network.
"The collaboration with Tempus will enable us to accelerate the enrollment of patients in our BRAF trial, by precisely identifying potential candidates and opening sites wherever the patients are found," Novellus CEO Michael Vidne said in a statement.
In September, Novellus raised $57 million in Series C funding. The company planned to put the new funding toward advancing PLX8394 and to develop other precision oncology candidates in its pipeline.