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Sarcomas are rare cancers of the connective tissues, including bone, cartilage, fat, muscle, and blood vessels. Soft tissue sarcoma specifically refers to the cancers arising in the tissue that connect, support or surround other structures and organs of the body. This includes muscles, tendons, fibrous tissues, blood vessels, nerves and synovial tissue. Sarcomas can spread or metastasize to other organs in the body and are then referred to as “metastatic soft tissue sarcomas”. Sarcomas are sometimes curable by surgery, or surgery plus chemotherapy and/or radiation. Several currently available chemotherapy agents (e.g., ifosfamide) have been in use for many years but have side effect profiles that make them very difficult to tolerate. There is still a need for new drugs to treat patients with soft tissue sarcoma.



Palifosfamide (Zymafos™ or ZIO-201) is a novel DNA cross-linker in class with bendamustine, ifosfamide, and cyclophosphamide. ZIOPHARM is currently enrolling patients in a randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled Phase III trial with palifosfamide administered intravenously for the treatment of metastatic soft tissue sarcoma in the front-line setting. The company is also currently conducting a Phase I intravenous study of palifosfamide in combination with standard of care addressing small cell lung cancer and an oral form of the drug for treatment of solid tumors is currently in the advanced preclinical stage of development.