ADM Korea Announces Niclosamide-based Metabolic Anticancer Drug's First Clinical Trial Target as 'Prostate Cancer Patients Resistant to Hormone Therapy'

• IND for clinical study for combination therapy with hormone therapy in prostate cancer patients to be submitted in August, 2024.
• Niclosamide-based metabolic anticancer drug aims to block signaling pathways that allow cancer cells to evade anticancer effects, potentially solving the issue of drug resistance.

SEOUL, South Korea, July 11, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — ADM Korea, a subsidiary of Hyundai Bioscience, announced on the 8th that the first clinical trial target population for its niclosamide-based oral metabolic anticancer drug will be 'prostate cancer patients resistant to hormone therapy.'

Metabolic anticancer drugs regulate the metabolic pathways of cancer cells to induce their death. The niclosamide-based metabolic anticancer drug not only regulates the metabolic pathways of cancer cells to induce their death but also blocks the signaling pathways of cancer cells that avoid anticancer effects, thus inhibiting drug resistance.

Currently used anticancer drugs, including hormone therapies, chemotherapies, targeted therapies, and immunotherapies, all fail to resolve the issue of cancer cell drug resistance that arises with long-term treatment. Cancer cell resistance refers to the phenomenon where cancer cells activate cell signaling pathways that help them evade the effects of anticancer agents through repeated drug administration, thereby decreasing the efficacy of the drugs. The biggest challenge in anti-cancer treatment is solving the problem of cancer cell drug resistance, but no drug has yet been developed to address this.

Niclosamide is a drug that has been identified to inhibit the Wnt/β-catenin and STAT3 cell signaling pathways, which are activated when cancer cells develop resistance to anticancer drugs, thereby suppressing cancer cell drug resistance. Numerous studies have shown that when niclosamide is used in combination with chemotherapies (such as SN38 and azacitidine), immunotherapies (PD-L1 Ab), targeted therapies (erlotinib), and hormone therapies (enzalutamide), the anticancer effects are superior to those of single-agent treatments. However, due to the longstanding issues of low absorption and short half-life, niclosamide has not been repurposed