Announcement of ETC-206, A*STAR’s second publicly funded cancer drug

^{Dr Kassoum Nacro- Research Project Leader- Medicinal Chemistry- ETC- A*STAR- and and the Inventor of ETC-206- explains the chemical make-up of ETC-206 in his lab.}

ETC-206 is A*STAR’s second publicly-funded cancer drug to enter Phase 1 clinical trials- after ETC-159 in June 2015. ETC-206- which targets blood cancers- was discovered and developed through a collaboration between A*STAR’s Experimental Therapeutics Centre (ETC)- the Drug Discovery and Development (D3) unit- and Duke-National University of Singapore Medical School (Duke-NUS). It advanced into first-in-man trials in December 2016- with clinical research operations coordinated by the Singapore Clinical Research Institute (SCRI). The drug promises a more targeted approach to treating leukaemia and other forms of blood cancer- and could lower mortality rates for cancer compared to traditional chemotherapy which kills both healthy cells as well as cancer cells.