Vascarta Inc, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing therapies for pain, inflammation, and in collaboration with the City University of New York (CUNY), announced on Monday the publication of a preclinical study demonstrating that STO-1, a first-in-class drug candidate, can selectively withdraw glioblastoma (GBM) cells in mice while avoiding harmful autoimmune reactions.

STO-1 is a proprietary hybrid molecule in which curcumin is linked to paclitaxel with a linker that gets broken when STO-1 enters a cell. Vascarta says that during the study, mice treated with STO-1 experienced a 67% long-term survival rate, with several animals achieving complete tumour clearance.

Dr. Probal Banerjee, the senior author and Professor of Biochemistry, Biology, Neuroscience, Chemistry at the College of Staten Island, CUNY, said: "Unlike other immune therapies, which can trigger dangerous autoimmune reactions, STO-1 targets only the tumour-associated cells. This study demonstrates a promising new approach to treating glioblastoma safely."