PDX Pharmaceuticals has been awarded a fast-track SBIR grant from the National Cancer Institute for the development of a new drug candidate named PETTRA (PLK1 and EGFR Targeted Therapy and Radiation sensitizer) for lung cancer treatment. PETTRA is built upon our patented nanoparticle delivery platform (Pdx-NP™) for co-delivering anti-EGFR antibody (as a cancer homing agent and an EGFR inhibitor) and PLK1 siRNA. Drs. Worapol Ngamcherdtrakul, Wassana Yantasee, and Moataz Reda serve as multiple PIs. The team received the great score leading to the award ($400K for phase I and $2.0M for phase II upon meeting the phase I milestones) after first submission. The project is in collaboration with the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Knight Cancer Institute (KCI) of OHSU. Other collaborators/key contributors include Drs. Gordon Mills, Joe Gray, Josh Walker, John Minna (UTSW) and Rolf Brekken (UTSW).
To view illustration of PETTRA, click here