CLEVELAND – A new anti-cancer drug developed at the Ireland Cancer Center of University Hospitals Case Medical Center and Case Western Reserve University was used for the first time to treat a cancer patient. The Phase One study at the Ireland Cancer Center of TRC102, a novel anti-cancer drug intended to reverse resistance to chemotherapy by targeting a specific DNA repair pathway, has the potential to improve the lives of many patients.
“This new therapy has the promise of overcoming a major mechanism of drug resistance which is good news for cancer patients,” says Panos Savvides, MD, oncologist with the Ireland Cancer Center, assistant professor of medicine at Case Western Reserve University and primary investigator for the trial. “Resistance to chemotherapy prevents many patients from benefiting, but this new “first-in-class” agent, used in combination with Temodar®, uniquely reverses resistance to chemotherapy.”