Biopharmaceutical company Ascentage Pharma said on Wednesday that it has successfully filed its Investigational New Drug (IND) application with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for APG-1387 for the treatment of advanced solid tumors and hematologic malignancies.

APG-1387 is a novel small molecule inhibitor of apoptosis (IAP), which was discovered and is being developed by the company. Inhibitors of apoptosis (IAPs) are a group of proteins that act on the intrinsic pathway that blocks programmed cell death or apoptosis. Studies have shown that high expression of IAP protein can promote the occurrence of various malignant tumors, including lung cancer, head and neck cancer, breast cancer, gastrointestinal cancer, melanoma as well as multiple myeloma.

In conjunction, APG-1387, which is being administered to patients once a week, is a dimer inhibitor that binds both IAP protein monomers and dimers, which overcomes the drawbacks of the existing drugs which cannot act on the dimer of the IAP protein. This dual inhibition may improve its effectiveness for more cancers, added the company.

Additionally, APG-1387 has completed Phase 1 dose escalation studies in China and Australia, according to the company.