Today the Cellceutix Corporation announced that its new anti-cancer drug candidate Kevetrin will soon be entering clinical trials at the Harvard Cancer Center’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Cellceutix is a biopharmaceutical company focused on small molecule drugs for the treatment of “unmet” medical conditions, such as drug-resistant cancers and autoimmune diseases.

Kevetrin is Cellceutix’s name for the compound Thioureidobutyronitrile. The Cellceutix website states that the drug activates the “guardian angel gene” p53, which plays a role in controlling cell mutations. P53, in more than 50% of all human carcinomas, is limited in its ability to fight tumors by mutations. The company states that animal model experiments in drug-resistant cancers have been “excellent.”

The Harvard Cancer Center is now ready to begin recruiting patients who have refractory solid tumors for the trial. The trial is a Phase I trial, meaning testing is at a very early stage. These clinical trials wil look at pharmacokinetics (what the human body does with the drug), pharmacodynamics (what the drug does to the body), tolerance, safety, and the maximum tolerated dose for the drug. About 40 patients will be enrolled for the “dose escalation” part of the study, with the possibility of up to 12 more being recruited for dosage saftey and pharmacodynamics testing.