Debiopharm a privately-owned, Swiss-based biopharmaceutical company aiming to establish tomorrow’s standard-of-care to cure cancer and infectious diseases, today announced the first patient dosed in the expansion of its open-label, non-randomized, multicenter Phase 1 study evaluating Debio 0123, an oral, potent, highly selective and brain-penetrant WEE1 inhibitor, as a monotherapy in patients with recurrent or progressive solid tumors. The expansion of this Phase 1 study, NCT05109975, is to characterize the safety, tolerability, and initial signs of antitumor activity of Debio 0123 when administered as monotherapy. Two out of the three expansion arms of the study will be using biomarkers to pre-select patients with different solid tumors while the third arm will be treating patients with recurrent serous endometrial carcinoma. Currently, sites are open for enrollment in the United States, Spain, and Switzerland.

“Part of our strategy of utilizing OMICs* approaches to identify specific biomarkers and identify patient populations that will respond to Debio 0123 due to synthetic lethality will allow us to enroll patients who are most likely to benefit from treatment, thereby taking a truly precision medicine approach” expressed Dr. Victor Rodriguez-Freixinos, Medical Director, Debiopharm.

Uterine serous carcinoma (USC) is an uncommon, but aggressive subtype of endometrial cancer. It represents approximately 10% of all endometrial cases, which translates to more than 6,000 newly diagnosed patients each year in the United States ^1-2. Despite representing a small proportion of endometrial cancer cases, uterine serous carcinoma accounts for an alarming 39% of endometrial cancer-related deaths. Features highlighting the gravity of USC include the high rates of deep myometrial invasion, as well as metastatic spread to lymph nodes and peritoneal surfaces ¹. These features largely affect the 5-year overall survival but compared with more common endometrial cancer, the prognosis for USC is generally poor and the risk of relapse is high ³. Similar to USC, epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is known for its poor prognosis due to the aggressive clinical course and the tendency to metastasize. However, EOC accounts for about 90% of all ovarian cancers and affects more than 17,000 American women each year, of which about 30% survive for 5 years after diagnosis ^4-5.

“This study’s population is mainly female, burdened by fatal malignancies like Uterine Serous Carcinoma, Epithelial Ovarian Cancer and fallopian tube cancer which are well-known hard-to-treat cancers. These patients need new treatment options, as the current standard of care is insufficient in assuring long-term progression free survival.” Dr. Manish R. Sharma, Principal Investigator at the START Midwest, Michigan.