Acetylon Pharmaceuticals Announces Publication of Preclinical Safety and Efficacy Results for Lead Drug Candidate ACY-1215 in Multiple Myeloma

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Acetylon Pharmaceuticals today announced the publication of favorable results of preclinical safety and efficacy testing of its oral selective HDAC6 inhibitor drug candidate, ACY-1215, in multiple myeloma. In studies conducted at the Massachusetts General Hospital and at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, ACY-1215, when administered either as a single agent or in synergistic combination with the first-in-class proteasome inhibitor drug bortezomib (Velcade®, Takeda Millennium Pharmaceuticals), demonstrated effectiveness in two in vivo disease models of multiple myeloma as well as against drug-resistant multiple myeloma patient cells. Inhibition of HDAC6 results in inhibition of a critical intracellular mechanism for degradation of misfolded proteins called the “aggresome” pathway, which was demonstrated to result in potent killing of myeloma cells via apoptosis (programmed cell death) while being well tolerated and non-toxic to normal cells. The results have been published in a special on-line edition of the scientific journal of the American Society of Hematology, Blood, (116(21), 2997, Nov. 19, 2010) and were presented yesterday at the Society’s 52nd Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida.