Canadian clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company Bold Therapeutics Inc on Thursday released new data highlighting the ability of its lead asset, BOLD-100, to demonstrate protective effects against chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy.

BOLD-100 is a first-in-class, ruthenium-based anticancer agent in Phase 2 clinical development for advanced gastrointestinal (GI) cancers in combination with the chemotherapy regimen FOLFOX.

According to Bold Therapeutics,, BOLD-100 plus FOLFOX improves overall survival and progression-free survival in patients, including advanced colon (mCRC), gastric (GC), and bile duct cancers (BTC). While FOLFOX is a standard-of-care therapy for GI cancers, its clinical utility is limited by acute and chronic peripheral neuropathies which present in most patients. In the ongoing Phase 2 development of BOLD-100, significantly lower than expected incidence of oxaliplatin-induced peripheral neuropathy (OIPN) was observed in patients treated with BOLD-100 plus FOLFOX.

Compared to FOLFOX alone historical benchmarks, BOLD-100 plus FOLFOX any-grade neuropathy was 14% vs 53% benchmark in colorectal cancer; 35% vs 58% benchmark in biliary tract cancer; and 19% vs 63% benchmark in gastric cancer.