Novacea, a privately held biopharmaceutical company, has announced that it has begun clinical testing of a new platinum-based chemotherapy treatment for patients suffering from non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Using a compound entitled DN-101, the company is investigating how effective treatment of NSCLC is, and also how the substance helps tackle advanced prostate cancer and myelodysplastic syndromes, a group of blood disorders that can progress to leukemia.

The Phase 1/2 clinical trial will enroll up to 62 patients with advanced (stage IIIb or IV) NSCLC who have failed previous therapy with platinum-based chemotherapy.

Patients will then be given the new oral DN-101 on day one, followed by intravenous docetaxel on day two of a 21-day cycle.

'Lung cancer is by far the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States, and non-small cell lung cancer accounts for more than 80 percent of cases,' commented Howard West, director of medical therapeutics for thoracic oncology at Swedish Cancer Institute in Seattle.

'Recent work combining calcitriol with chemotherapy, specifically docetaxel, in prostate cancer has shown very encouraging results, and we hope to see similar synergy with docetaxel in lung cancer,' he added.