Prima's investment to assist cancer research
Monday, 27 May, 2002
An investment in a novel monoclonal antibody with anti-cancer properties was announced today by Prima BioMed.
The antibody, developed at the Austin Research Institute, has been shown to destroy tumours in animal trials and prevent the growth of human-derived cancers in mice.
"Scientists at the Austin Research Institute and Prima's scientific advisory panel consider this will be a substantial treatment for a wide range of cancers as the antibody targets many types of cancers and based on experiments to date, it has the added benefit that it does not affect normal healthy tissue," said Marcus Clark, chief executive officer of Prima BioMed.
"Our plans with the new antibody project are to proceed through latter stage pre-clinical development, commencing the first tests on humans in 18 months," said Clark.
He explained that this timeline hinged on discussions with a number of companies to develop a humanised version of the monoclonal antibody.
According to Clark, the negotiations are expected to be completed in the next three months, so that manufacture of the humanised version of the antibody can be initiated.
Clark said that Prima BioMed chose to license the antibody for further development from a pool of about six proposals after assessment of each one by the sientific advisory panel and evaluation of market potential and portfolio impact.
He said that the therapeutic antibody approach would complement existing anti-cancer approaches in development by the company. These include priming patients' immune system cells to enhance recognition of tumour cells (CancerVac), and development of a vaccine to both prevent and treat cancer (the DCtag project).
According to Clark, Prima BioMed is in the process of setting up a new holding company to manage the development and commercialisation of its three approaches to anti-cancer therapies. Each platform would be a separate company under the direction of the holding company.
Clark said that this would allow efficient development of the projects and cross-fertilisation of ideas from the three companies.
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