Centella Therapeutics, a subsidiary of Varian Medical Systems, and Auckland UniServices have signed a licensing agreement granting Centella exclusive rights to CEN-209.
CEN-209 is an investigational drug designed to enhance the effectiveness of radiation therapy and chemotherapy when treating solid tumors that are hypoxic -- or oxygen-starved -- and resistant to standard forms of therapy.
In addition to CEN-209, Centella plans to develop CEN-109, an investigational PET imaging agent designed to identify tumors with hypoxic areas.
CEN-109 has undergone phase I clinical testing at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Turku in Finland (under the name F-18 EF5) and is being evaluated in phase II trials at several clinical centers.
