Worldwide Pivotal Phase III Study in Women with recurrent ovarian cancer underway in USA, Europe and Australia. A symposium on platinum resistant ovarian cancer will be held at the European Society for Gynecological Oncology in Berlin on Sunday, 28 October 2007. 

A symposium on platinum resistant ovarian cancer will be held at the European Society for Gynecological Oncology in Berlin on Sunday, 28 October. The Berlin symposium will be chaired by Professor Hani Gabra of the Ovarian Cancer Action Research Centre, Imperial College London, UK, and Professor Ignace Vergote, of the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium.

Cancer researchers will speak at the symposium which will focus on advances in platinum therapies and the potential for phenoxodiol as a promising new investigational drug to restore platinum sensitivity in platinum resistant ovarian cancer.

Phenoxodiol is being developed by the US oncology company Marshall Edwards, Inc. as a novel therapeutic in combination with carboplatin for late-stage chemoresistant ovarian cancers, as well as a monotherapy for prostate and cervical cancers. Phenoxodiol is a novel-acting drug that inhibits key pro-survival signaling pathways operating within cancer cells causing selective cancer cell death and increased susceptibility to drugs like platinum and taxane, to which most ovarian cancer patients become resistant in late stage disease.

A major multinational study, the OVArian TUmor REponse (OVATURE) Trial, is now underway in over 60 centers around the world. This is a major multi-center multinational Phase III clinical trial of phenoxodiol in women with advanced ovarian cancer resistant or refractory to platinum-based drugs, to determine its safety and effectiveness when used in combination with carboplatin. Preliminary results from the trial are expected within 18 months.