Novelos Therapeutics, a pharmaceutical company developing novel drugs for the treatment and diagnosis of cancer, announced that the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center (UWCCC), an oncology research institution, has enrolled the first patient in a phase I/II positron emission tomography (PET) imaging trial of I-124-CLR1404 (LIGHT), a cancer-targeted PET imaging agent, in patients with nine solid tumor types, including triple negative breast, soft tissue sarcoma, colorectal, gastric, head and neck cancer, esophageal, prostate, ovarian and pancreatic.

"We are pleased to begin enrollment in this trial to evaluate LIGHT across multiple solid tumor types," said Dr. Glenn Liu, the trial's principal investigator. "Oncologists are in need of better tools to diagnose patients more accurately and LIGHT has the potential to improve upon currently used standard approaches. Accurate diagnosis of local, regional and distant metastatic spread is critical for optimal management and improved accuracy of staging may also spare patients the morbidity of unnecessary, non-curative surgical procedures."

Harry Palmin, president and CEO of Novelos, added, “Having demonstrated initial positive LIGHT imaging data in lung and brain cancer patients this year, we now look forward to obtaining initial LIGHT imaging data across nine other solid tumor indications starting in the first quarter of 2013. We believe additional positive data will further establish proof-of-concept for LIGHT as a PET imaging agent in multiple cancer indications as well as guide selection of indications and trial designs for phase II clinical trials with I-131-CLR1404 (HOT).”

HOT is Novelos’ chemically identical small-molecule, broad-spectrum, cancer-targeted molecular radiotherapeutic that delivers cytotoxic radiation directly and selectively to cancer cells and cancer stem cells.