SAN DIEGO, Oct. 25, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Oncternal Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: ONCT), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of novel oncology therapies, today announced the addition of Matthew Smith, M.D., Ph.D. to its Prostate Cancer Scientific Advisory Board (SAB). Dr. Smith, along with the other Prostate Cancer SAB members, will help guide Oncternal’s next steps in the clinical development of its novel dual-acting androgen receptor inhibitor (DAARI), ONCT-534, which is currently under investigation in an ongoing Phase 1/2 clinical study, ONCT-534-101.

“We wholeheartedly welcome Dr. Smith to Oncternal’s Prostate Cancer Scientific Advisory Board,” said James Breitmeyer, M.D., Ph.D., Oncternal’s President and CEO. “We believe Dr. Smith’s expertise and his experience leading global registrational studies for novel prostate cancer therapeutics will be instrumental in helping us shape the clinical and registrational strategy for ONCT-534.”

“There is a significant unmet need for patients with metastatic prostate cancer and disease progression despite treatment with currently available AR pathway inhibitors, such as abiraterone acetate and enzalutamide,” said Matthew Smith, M.D., Ph.D. “I look forward to working with the Oncternal team to help bring their dual-acting AR inhibitor to patients. Preclinical studies suggest that ONCT-534 may address the most common escape mechanisms of metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, including activating mutations in the AR ligand-binding domain and constitutively active splice variants such as AR-V7.”

Dr. Matthew R. Smith is Director of the Genitourinary Oncology Program at Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is an internationally recognized expert in prostate cancer. He has published extensively on the treatment and prevention of bone metastases, prostate cancer survivorship, and novel androgen receptor pathway inhibitors. He has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed articles including manuscripts in New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, Journal of Clinical Oncology, and Clinical Cancer Research. He graduated summa cum laude from Canisius College with a B.A. in biochemistry. He received his MD and PhD degrees from Duke University School of Medicine. He trained in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital. He completed a fellowship in Medical Oncology at Dana Farber Cancer Institute and a postdoctoral fellowship at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

About Oncternal Therapeutics

Oncternal Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of novel oncology therapies for the treatment of patients with cancers that have critical unmet medical need. Oncternal pursues drug development targeting promising, yet untapped biological pathways implicated in cancer generation or progression, focusing on hematological malignancies and prostate cancer. ONCT-534 is an investigational dual-action androgen receptor inhibitor (DAARI) with preclinical activity in prostate cancer models against both unmutated androgen receptor (AR), and against multiple forms of AR aberration. It is a potential treatment for patients with mCRPC and unmet medical need because of resistance to androgen receptor inhibitors, including those with AR amplification, mutations in the AR ligand binding domain (LBD), or splice variants with loss of the AR LBD. Oncternal has initiated Study ONCT-534-101 (NCT05917470) for the treatment of patients with mCRPC. ONCT-808 is an investigational autologous chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR T) cell therapy that targets Receptor Tyrosine Kinase-Like Orphan Receptor 1 (ROR1) using the binding domain from zilovertamab. ONCT-808 has demonstrated activity in preclinical models against multiple hematological malignancies and solid tumors and has been shown to be specific for cancer cells expressing ROR1. Oncternal has developed a robust and reproducible manufacturing process that has the potential to reduce the time patients must wait for their individual CAR T product to be produced, compared with approved CAR T products. Oncternal has initiated Study ONCT-808-101 (NCT05588440) for the treatment of patients with relapsed or refractory aggressive B-cell lymphoma, including patients who have failed previous CD19 CAR T treatment. Zilovertamab is an investigational monoclonal antibody designed to inhibit the function of ROR1. Zilovertamab has been evaluated in a Phase 1/2 Study CIRM-0001 (NCT03088878) in combination with ibrutinib for the treatment of patients with MCL, chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and marginal zone lymphoma (MZL). Zilovertamab is also being evaluated in two investigator-initiated studies: a Phase 2 clinical trial of zilovertamab in combination with venetoclax, a Bcl-2 inhibitor, in patients with R/R CLL (NCT04501939), and a Phase 1b study of zilovertamab in combination with docetaxel in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (NCT05156905). More information on our company and programs is available at https://oncternal.com/.

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