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Infinity Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASD: INFI: Summary, Messages, Articles), an innovative cancer drug discovery and development company seeking to discover, develop, and deliver to patients best-in-class medicines for the treatment of cancer and related conditions, recently announced that the company has initiated a Phase 1 clinical trial of its oral Hedgehog signaling pathway inhibitor, IPI-926. The Phase 1 trial is an open-label, dose-escalation study evaluating IPI-926 in up to 50 patients with advanced and/or metastatic solid tumors.

IPI-926 is a proprietary inhibitor of the Hedgehog signaling pathway that binds to and inhibits a key regulator of this pathway, the Smoothened receptor. The Hedgehog signaling pathway is normally active in regulating tissue and organ formation during embryonic development. Abnormal activation of the Hedgehog pathway can lead to cancer and is believed to play a central role in allowing the proliferation and survival of several types of cancers, including pancreatic, prostate, lung, breast, and certain brain cancers.

Charles M. Rudin, M.D., Ph.D., associate director, clinical research at the Johns Hopkins Cancer Center, commented, “The medical and scientific communities are very excited about the therapeutic possibilities of Hedgehog pathway inhibitors in oncology. We look forward to studying IPI-926 in a variety of solid tumors to better understand how to develop Infinity’s Hedgehog pathway inhibitor effectively.”

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