Beverly biopharmaceutical company Cellceutix Corp. on Monday said a cancer drug it is testing in clinical trials is more advanced than similar treatments under development by larger companies that featured in The New York Times Sunday.

Merck & Co., Roche Holding Ltd. and Sanofi SA are working on cancer drugs that would enable a protein called p53 to perform its normal function -- causing badly damaged cells to self-destruct. Cancer cells disable p53, allowing them to multiply, but the drugs would reactivate the protein and kill cancer cells.