The study by University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers led by Assistant Professor Ewan Tytler showed the drug also sensitizes tumors to chemotherapy treatments.

Tytler and his colleagues assessed the potential of triphendiol as a treatment for pancreatic adenocarcinoma using three representative cell lines. Triphendiol induced cell death in all three cell lines and pretreating the cell lines with triphendiol increased the effectiveness of chemotherapy.

Animal model studies showed triphendiol in combination with chemotherapy inhibited tumor growth even more effectively than each drug alone.

"In our laboratory studies, triphendiol is more potent at inducing cell death in pancreatic and bile duct cancer cells compared to the chemotherapy drug gemcitabine alone at up to 10-fold lower concentrations," Tytler said. "Of course, there is still much work to be done before this could become a treatment protocol for cancer patients, but our findings are promising and validate the continued development of triphendiol as a possible pancreatic cancer therapy."

Triphendiol is being developed by Marshall Edwards Inc. (NASDAQ:MSHL), which funded Tytler's research.

The study that included Dr. Xiaohong Wang and Professor J. Anthony Thompson was presented last week in San Diego, during the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.