News: Virax Holdings to make material transaction

Virax Holdings (ASX:VHL) has been granted an ASX trading halt in relation to a material transaction.

The halt will last until the earlier of the announcement being made or the start of trade on Friday, 17 October 2014.

In September, the company received a Technical Assessment report from Ground Zero Pharmaceuticals (GZP) on its lead compound, GGTI-2418.

This allows Virax to move quickly towards re-opening its IND for a planned Phase Ib/II breast cancer trial in 2015.

It plans to request IND reactivation, followed by a request for a meeting with FDA to discuss the GGTI-2418 development program.

GGTI-2418 is a novel, first in class cancer immunotherapeutic with the ability to block an important cancer growth enzyme known as GGTI-2418.

It also blocks the Ral and Rho circuits in cancer cells which act as key oncogenic survival pathways leading to apoptosis (death) of cancer cells.

GGTI-2418 has been in Phase I clinical trials at Pennsylvania State University and Indiana University which established a favorable safety profile.

In addition, four of nine patients dosed experienced stable disease of their advanced stage and treatment-refractory solid tumours.