Cellceutix Corporation announced that it has submitted the application to the Institutional Review Board (IRB) responsible for the planned clinical study of the company's psoriasis drug Prurisol. The trial is a short crossover study being conducted at the request of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with the purpose of demonstrating that Prurisol, an ester of abacavir, converts into abacavir in humans, just as it did in animal models. Once IRB approval is received, Cellceutix will immediately file an Investigational New Drug (IND) Application with the FDA.

The trial is expected to take approximately one and a half months to complete, at which time the Company will move forward with initiation of a larger Phase 2/3 trial under the guidance from the FDA that a 505(b)(2) designation is an appropriate developmental pathway for Prurisol. Cellceutix will be providing a comprehensive update on all of its pipeline developments at the Biotech Showcase 2014 conference being held in San Francisco, California, January 13-15, 2014.