On October 5, 2009 Cancer Therapeutics CRC Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia (CTx) reported a collaboration with Duke University, North Carolina, USA (Duke) to discover and develop new drugs for the treatment of many forms of cancer, based on research undertaken by the laboratory of Duke Professor Patrick Casey (Press release, Cancer Research Technology, OCT 5, 2009, View Source [SID1234523345]). Professor Casey and his team at Duke have been investigating lipid signaling pathways and the role of lipid metabolising enzymes in cancer for many years and have developed a series of promising new inhibitors of these enzymes. CTx has taken an exclusive license to these inhibitors and will initiate a drug development program to bring these early stage compounds toward the clinic.

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This adds to CTx’s international collaborations and was greatly facilitated by CTx’s commercial partner, Cancer Research Technology Ltd of the UK and its US subsidiary, Cancer Research Technology Inc.

CTx’s CEO, Tony Evans commented that collaborating with an academic medical center of Duke’s caliber is a major expansion of CTx’s capabilities in partnering with overseas cancer researchers in order to source the most promising novel targets for CTx’s drug discovery projects.

(Press release, Innate Pharma, SEP 14, 2009, View Source [SID:1234505994])

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On August 13, 2009 IMBiotechnologies reported that the company has completed purchase of all assets related to the Occlusin tumor starvation technology from Paladin Labs (Press release, IMBiotechnologies, AUG 13, 2009, View Source [SID:1234502249]). In addition to the cash payment provided to purchase the technology, Paladin will receive a one time milestone payment on first sale of product and a royalty with a capped payment. IMBio will focus its efforts on obtaining regulatory approval for its lead product candidate, Occlusin 500 Artificial Embolization Device ("OCL 500 AED"), which is a medical device.

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"All pre-clinical testing of the OCL 500 AED medical device is complete and we are in the process of assembling the pre-market notification (510(k)) submission to the FDA," commented Michael Stewart, President & CEO of IMBio. "The OCL 500 AED embolic agent cuts off the blood supply to tumors and demonstrates equivalent safety and effectiveness in comparison to currently approved embolic agents. One of the significant advantages of OCL 500 AED is that it is biodegradable and is slowly broken down by the body until it ultimately disappears. Competitor’s products are permanent implants and stay in the body for the life of the patient."

OCL 500 AED is designed for the treatment of malignant and non-malignant vascularised tumors. Examples of vascularised tumors include heptocellular carcinoma (HCC; liver cancer), renal cell carcinoma (RCC; kidney cancer) and uterine fibroids. Over 2 million women in the USA alone suffer from debilitating effects of uterine fibroids.

On July 22, 2009 REGiMMUNE Corporation reported that Astellas Pharma Inc. and REGiMMUNE have entered into a collaboration agreement to jointly research and develop a novel vaccine-platform technology (Press release, REGimmune, JUL 22, 2009, View Source [SID1234642238]). The partnership will combine Astellas’ broad range of capabilities in screening and developing natural source-derived compounds with REGiMMUNE’s immune liposome technology. Terms of the agreement have not been disclosed.

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"Our goal is to develop a potent vaccine-platform technology that enables effective vaccination with novel adjuvant and immune liposome technologies, increasing the efficiency of delivery to immune cells. Our approach will eliminate many of the current limitations for vaccine development," explained Haru Morita, CEO of REGiMMUNE. "This is particularly important for responding to new or changing virus strains. Astellas has a strong presence in immunology and is one of the largest vaccine distributors in Japan," Mr. Morita continued. "We believe this collaboration can produce a technology that will allow a rapid response to various viral outbreaks spreading around the world."

"We are pleased to initiate our first partnership with REGiMMUNE," stated Masafumi Nogimori, President and Chief Executive Officer of Astellas. "Disease prevention through timely and adequate vaccination is a key to maintaining human health. Astellas is committed to developing a new vaccine platform and this collaboration with REGiMMUNE will strengthen our position in this important area of disease prevention."

About Vaccines
Prophylactic vaccines need to elicit sufficient immune responses to protect individuals from the challenge by infectious agents. Most commonly, attenuated live viral particles are used to develop effective vaccines; however, development of live viral particles requires significant lead time and lengthy, costly manufacturing processes. While efforts have been made to develop improved adjuvants to enhance the potency of non-viral vaccines, Alum remains the only adjuvant approved by the U.S. FDA for use in humans. The Astellas-REGiMMUNE collaboration is expected to address these obstacles and provide a number of benefits over currently marketed products.

On July 13, 2009 Cancer Research Technology (CRT), Merck Serono, a division of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, Cancer Research UK, Cardiff University and The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) reported new research collaboration for the first time (Press release, Cancer Research Technology, JUL 13, 2009, View Source [SID1234523348]). This will provide substantial investment in research on the WNT signalling pathway in the hope of finding new drug targets.

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This cross-disciplinary, multicentre effort, spanning up to three years, will focus on the discovery of inhibitors of the WNT pathway. This pathway is involved in the physiological tissue development in embryos, as well as in tissue maintenance in adults.

Mutations in this pathway alter the molecular switches that regulate the WNT pathway and leave it permanently switched on. Such continuous activation can result in the development of cancer. Deregulation of this pathway is a frequent activating event in human cancers and is known to be linked to bowel, skin, breast and other cancers. The aim of this collaboration is to identify and develop small molecule inhibitors of the WNT pathway that could eventually become novel treatments for cancer patients.

This collaboration was established by CRT, Cancer Research UK’s commercialisation and development company, following work funded by the charity’s Discovery Committee which set the translational foundations for the programme.

Merck Serono will contribute substantial funding which will augment existing investment by Cancer Research UK and allow more rapid translation of insights into drugs that may benefit cancer patients. The work will take place at Cardiff University, the ICR and Merck Serono. Financial details were not disclosed.

Professor Trevor Dale, lead scientist on the programme at Cardiff University said: "Normal cells communicate with each other by exchanging WNT protein signals. A WNT signal will instruct a cell to grow, divide and behave like a stem cell. Cancer mutations break the molecular switches that connect WNT proteins to cell growth. This in effect leaves the pathway permanently switched on. This collaboration will allow us to convert these biological insights into therapies which one day may help us treat cancer patients."

Professor Julian Blagg, the lead scientist at The Institute of Cancer Research continued: "This collaboration brings together Cardiff’s expertise in the fundamental biology of the pathway along with the drug discovery and development expertise at the ICR and Merck Serono. This will enable us to make real progress in targeting this exciting area and harness the enormous potential in WNT pathway therapy."

Dr Phil L’Huillier, CRT’s director of business management, said: "Today’s deal represents a significant endorsement for investment in the development of early scientific research. It is testament to the promise of the lab-based research that we are now in a position to take it forward with such a large-scale project and begin to think about new treatments for cancer patients. We hope by pooling expertise we will be able to progress WNT pathway inhibitors in the fastest possible time."