SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Blaze Bioscience, the Tumor Paint Company®, a biotechnology company focused on guided cancer therapy, today announced expansion of its Phase 1 program into multiple additional tumor types. The study, which is open for enrollment, is titled “A Phase 1 exploratory study of the safety and ex vivo fluorescence of BLZ-100 administered by intravenous injection in adult subjects with solid tumors undergoing surgery,” and will enroll up to thirty (30) patients. The study is currently active at Overlake Medical Center in Bellevue, WA under the direction of principal investigator Kristi Harrington, M.D., Ph.D.
Further information on the study can be found at www.clinicaltrials.gov.
This is the third Phase 1 study of BLZ-100 under the company’s open Investigational New Drug (IND) application with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and will evaluate the safety and imaging characteristics of BLZ-100 in breast, lung, prostate, colorectal, and other cancers.
“We are passionate about finding the best treatment options for our patients. Innovative technologies such as Tumor Paint BLZ-100 could improve our ability to see cancer in real time during surgery, which could result in better tumor resection and improved surgical outcomes for our patients,” said Dr. Kristi Harrington, a breast surgeon at Overlake Medical Center and the principal investigator of the study.
“We believe this study will provide additional clinical validation of the positive preclinical and veterinary results showing broad utility of Tumor Paint BLZ-100,” said Heather Franklin, co-founder and CEO of Blaze Bioscience. “It is an important milestone in our mission to improve the lives of the millions of cancer patients undergoing surgery every year.”
About BLZ-100
BLZ-100 is the first product candidate from Blaze’s Tumor Paint platform and consists of an Optide (optimized peptide), which binds and internalizes into cancer cells, and a fluorescent dye, which emits light in the near-infrared range. Tumor Paint products are designed to provide real-time, high-resolution intraoperative visualization of cancer cells, enabling more precise, complete resection of cancer throughout surgery. Preclinical utility of Tumor Paint technology has been demonstrated in a wide range of cancer types, including brain, lung, breast, prostate, and colorectal. BLZ-100 is currently in multiple Phase 1 proof-of-concept clinical studies to evaluate the safety and imaging characteristics of BLZ-100 in solid tumor cancers.
About Blaze Bioscience
Blaze Bioscience, Inc. is a privately held biotechnology company focused on guided cancer therapy. Blaze was founded in 2010 by Dr. Jim Olson, a pediatric neuro-oncologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Seattle Children’s Hospital, and Heather Franklin, a former member of the executive management team at ZymoGenetics. Blaze is working to develop Tumor Paint products and Optide-based therapeutics. Surgery is first-line therapy for most solid tumor cancers and Tumor Paint products intend to improve cancer surgery by providing real-time, high-resolution visualization of cancer cells throughout surgery. The ability to see cancer cells in real time and high resolution throughout surgery should enable better detection and more complete and precise surgical removal of cancer—while sparing surrounding normal tissue. In addition to the Tumor Paint platform, Blaze is collaborating with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center to discover and develop products based on knottin peptides as part of the Optides platform. This program extends the expertise gained in developing the Tumor Paint platform to optimized knottin peptides for therapeutic and imaging applications. For additional information, please visit www.blazebioscience.com.
