A new treatment developed in Quebec against basal cell carcinoma (BCC) skin cancer has carried out its first trial on a human, which is described as a “major breakthrough”.
The biopharmaceutical company Feldan Therapeutics announced that it had tested its treatment, FLD-103, on a first patient as part of a clinical trial.
This type of skin cancer, BCC, is characterized by the development of tumors primarily in sun-exposed skin areas such as the face, neck and scalp.
It affects 3.6 million people in Canada and the United States each year.
This new intralesional treatment was designed to offer an alternative to surgery to patients with BCC, who currently often have to turn to it to treat it, which can lead to several complications.
“It will happen with a lot of problems in terms of scars, it could be disfigurement and also a lot of problems in terms of post-operative treatments,” explained the CEO of Feldan Thérapeutiques, François-Thomas Michaud, in an interview. has Mario Dumont.
“So, what we want to offer would be an alternative which would be specialized injections which precisely revise the cancer cells to avoid surgery,” he added.
Tested on humans for the first time
The clinical trial, a first in humans, aims in particular to evaluate the safety, tolerability and clinical effectiveness of FLD-103.
Pharmacological studies alive carried out with FLD-103 made it possible to observe the effectiveness of intralesional injection.
Administrations of FLD-103 intravenously or intradermally were found to effectively reduce tumor growth and were well tolerated for a period of 28 days.
“A major breakthrough”
FLD-103 has the potential to become a minimally invasive first-line option for patients with BCC.
This treatment has the potential to “address a crucial and unmet need in the treatment of basal cell carcinoma,” said Dr. Juliana Junger, dermatologist and principal investigator of the trial, in a press release.
It could also reduce wait times for patients awaiting treatment, since it offers a quick and accessible solution for primary care dermatologists.
“By offering a more patient-centered approach without compromising effectiveness, this intralesional therapy could represent a major advance in the clinical management of BCC,” she said.
When will it be available?
The biopharmaceutical company hopes to have the treatment commercialized around 2028 and 2030, Michaud said.
“The science is very, very good,” he said. Our preclinical results are excellent. This means that we, internally, are very confident about the future.”
“When we reach the first clinical trials, we are talking about only 10% of new molecules that will be approved commercially,” he continued.
See the full interview above.
