Biotechnology company Clover Biopharmaceuticals revealed on Tuesday that the first patient has been dosed in a Phase I trial of SCB-313 in China.

SCB-313 is an investigational fully-human TRAIL-Trimer fusion protein, which is a potential therapy for peritoneal carcinomatosis patients.

The company said this Phase I, open-label, dose escalation trial is designed to assess the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics and preliminary efficacy of intraperitoneally administered SCB-313 as a single-agent for the treatment of peritoneal carcinomatosis.

Dr Peng Liang, co-founder, chairman and president of Clover, stated: "TRAIL has long been considered a tantalizing target for cancer therapy because it can induce apoptosis in a tumor-specific manner across many different tumor types. SCB-313, which utilizes our proprietary Trimer-Tag technology, is able to potently and uniquely target this trimerization-dependent pathway. We believe that SCB-313 has the potential to be a best-in-class TRAIL-based therapy based on our R&D results to date, and in the months ahead, we look forward to initiating multiple new clinical studies for the treatment of intracavitary cancers."