2014 EORTC: Induction of apoptosis with a novel dual cIAP1/XIAP antagonist in models of melanoma

Summary

Inhibitor of apoptosis (IAP) antagonists are being tested in the clinic for the treatment of cancer as they can switch cancer cell TNFα signalling from being pro-survival to being pro-apoptotic, and
relieve the block on effector caspase activation (1,2). Astex has used fragment based-drug discovery to develop a first-in-class, dual XIAP/cIAP1 antagonist (ASTX660), which is non-peptidomimetic,
does not contain an alanine as a warhead and demonstrates prolonged antagonism of both XIAP and cIAP1 in vivo.

Melanoma is a highly aggressive malignancy with an exceptional ability to develop resistance to targeted therapies. Targeting IAP proteins in melanoma is a promising strategy to overcome this
resistance (3), and ASTX660 represents a novel approach because of the enhanced potency against XIAP (4).

View further details below
2014 EORTC: Induction of apoptosis with a novel dual cIAP1/XIAP antagonist in models of melanoma