Nerviano cancer trial gets nod from FDA

Italy's Nerviano Medical Sciences has received US Food and Drug Administration approval to begin a Phase I study with its selective  PLK-1 small molecule inhibitor for the treatment of cancer.

This new compound is orally bioavailable, highly efficient and well  tolerated in preclinical models of cancer after repeated dosing. This  unique inhibitor adds another promising candidate to the pipeline of  innovative cell cycle targets with different mechanisms of action in  clinical development. An Investigational New Drug application for an  inhibitor of CDC-7 was approved by the FDA in January this year and the  first patients were treated with the compound in April. NMS, CDK and  Aurora inhibitors are in Phase I and II clinical development,  respectively, and are starting to show promising activity in specific  patient populations, according to the firm.