OncoGenex to Present Data on Lead Cancer Drug Candidate OGX-011

OncoGenex Technologies announced that results from a second Phase I study of OGX-011, the company's lead product candidate, will be presented at the 41st Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).

OGX-011 is being co-developed by OncoGenex and Isis Pharmaceuticals. This study was coordinated by the National Cancer Institute of Canada Clinical Trials Group and conducted at three Canadian centers.

OGX-011 is a second-generation antisense inhibitor of clusterin. Clusterin is a cell-survival protein that is over-expressed in many cancers and is associated with treatment resistance and poor clinical outcome.

At the 2004 ASCO Annual Meeting, OncoGenex and Isis reported that OGX-011, in a dose-dependent fashion, achieved effective drug concentration in prostate cancer tissue and produced up to a 91 percent dose-dependent decrease in clusterin expression. Results from the Phase I clinical trial also demonstrated that the inhibition of clusterin was associated with the predicted pharmacological outcome, the death of prostate cancer cells.