Iomab-B for Hematopoietic Stem Cells Transplantation:
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Iomab-B (BC8-I-131 construct) has already been successfully used as a myeloconditioning/myeloablative agent in over 250 patients with incurable blood cancers (Company Pipeline, Actinium Pharmaceuticals, APR 19, 2016, View Source [SID:1234511053]). In both Phase I and Phase II trials Iomab-B has led to effective cures in patients with no options left. The only potentially curative treatment option for those patients is bone marrow transplantation (BMT), also known as a hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT), but vast majority of patients over the age of 50 are either ineligible for myeloablative conditioning due to concomitant conditions or have a high burden and/or very resistant disease that makes reduced dose conditioning futile.
BC8-I-131 has demonstrated ability to successfully prepare such patients for bone marrow transplants when no other treatment was indicated. ATNM intends to develop Iomab-B through a regulatory approval via a pivotal registration trial in AML refractory/relapsing patients. That would allow for a relatively quick path to the market and provide a potentially curative treatment to patients who currently have little or no chance of achieving even a temporary remission, let alone a cure.
The targeting part of the Iomab-B construct is a monoclonal antibody that targets CD45, an antigen widely expressed on hematopoietic cells but not other tissues. Due to this broad expression, Iomab-B has demonstrated utility in other groups of patients and other indications as well, including Myelodysplastic Syndrome, Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, Hodgkin’s Disease and Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. These are follow-on indications which could be pursued simultaneously or delayed, for cash conservation, and financed from commercial revenues.
The company is already preparing a program for replacing iodine 131 with Actinium 225 to create a second generation drug that would enable a significant expansion of use, described below as Actimab-B, Iomab-B was invented by researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC), ATNM’s key collaborator on this program from whom ATNM obtained rights for all the commercial uses. FHCRC played a pivotal role in developing the entire field of bone marrow transplantation and the lead Hutchinson researcher, Dr. E. Donnall Thomas received the 1990 Nobel Prize in physiology/medicine for work in this area.