OnQuality Pharmaceuticals (“OnQuality”), a targeted oncology supportive therapy company developing innovative medications to address unmet needs in oncodermatology and oncogastroenterology (cancer therapy-induced side effects occurring in the skin and gastrointestinal tract, respectively) and to improve quality of life for patients receiving anticancer medications, today announced it will be giving an oral presentation highlighting preclinical data for its therapeutic candidate OQL051, a gut-restricted CDK4/6 inhibitor for the prevention of chemotherapy-induced diarrhea (CID), at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2022. The conference will be held in New Orleans, La., and virtually from April 8-13, 2022.
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CID is one of the most common side effects of chemotherapy, with a reported incidence rate as high as 80% depending on the chemotherapy agent. Cancer patients experiencing diarrhea have a 40% higher rate of therapy discontinuation compared to those who do not. To address this significant unmet need, OnQuality is developing OQL051, a gut-restricted CDK4/6 inhibitor with the potential to prevent CID without affecting anti-cancer efficacy. At AACR, OnQuality will present preclinical data from in vitro and in vivo experiments showing that OQL051 had significant efficacy in protecting gastrointestinal tissues from damage and decreasing diarrhea caused by chemotherapy. Furthermore, pharmacological data revealed that OQL051 concentrations were 100 to 300 times higher in the jejunum and colon than in plasma, demonstrating its ability to target the intestinal tract thereby minimizing the potential to antagonize systemically administered chemotherapy regimens.
“OnQuality is committed to developing OQL051 for the prevention of CID, which will ultimately lead to improvements in patient quality of life and treatment outcomes. Our preclinical data demonstrate that the novel approach of OQL051 is an innovative solution that will prevent diarrhea while protecting gastrointestinal tissue from chemotherapy damage while minimizing the potential to interfere with systemically administered chemotherapy regimens” said Robert C. Tyler, Ph.D., Senior Medical Director of OnQuality. “I look forward to presenting these data at AACR and engaging in meaningful scientific discussions about the need for CID prevention at the conference with other industry leaders.”