Collaboration to Advance use of Phospholipid Drug Conjugate (PDC) Platform for Targeted Delivery of a selection of Pierre Fabre Cytotoxics
MADISON, Wis., CASTRES, France, Dec. 16th, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -Pierre Fabre, the third largest French pharmaceutical company, and Cellectar Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:CLRB), an oncology-focused biotechnology company, today announce a research collaboration designed to combine Cellectar’s proprietary PDC delivery platform with a selection of Pierre Fabre’s proprietary cytotoxics. These new Small-Molecule-Drug-Conjugate products (SMDCs) are designed to exhibit high selectivity towards cancer cells in order to expand therapeutic index and provide improved clinical performance to otherwise highly potent agents.
Phospholipid Drug Conjugates (PDCs) are a new class of small-molecules that employ Cellectar’s extensively validated phospholipid ether-based cancer targeting and delivery vehicle. The PDC platform possesses the ability to incorporate diverse oncologic payloads for targeted delivery to a broad range of solid and liquid tumours, including brain metastases, and to cancer stem cells.
The primary objective of the research collaboration is to co-design a library of constructs and to achieve in-vivo Proof-of-Concept of the superiority of these PDCs to the corresponding naked payloads. Thanks to their remarkable lipid rafts-mediated distribution properties, PDCs are expected to provide enhanced therapeutic indices to otherwise highly potent payloads through targeted delivery to cancer cells.
Pierre Fabre will provide the payloads and its know-how in the design of natural product-derived active conjugates, as well as its prior expertise into SMDCs.
Cellectar will provide its proprietary PDC Platform technology and will be in charge of conducting the drug discovery program up to preclinical stage and, should it be successful, to clinical evaluation.
Pierre Fabre has been granted the option to license any, or all, of the new drug conjugates developed as part of the research collaboration, while Cellectar will own all intellectual property (IP) associated with the new drug conjugates. “We are very pleased to be working with Pierre Fabre, an internationally respected and highly innovative pharmaceutical company with an impressive oncology research and development program,” said Jim Caruso, president and CEO of Cellectar Biosciences. This collaboration represents further validation of the potential for our PDC delivery platform to provide targeted delivery of diverse oncologic payloads and is a significant milestone since the introduction of our CTX Program this past August.”
“We are very excited to collaborate with Cellectar Biosciences who has demonstrated high standards of its research engine and uniqueness of its technology offering”, said Laurent Audoly, Head of R&D of Pierre Fabre Pharmaceuticals. “We are convinced that Cellectar’s proprietary technology will provide our cytotoxic molecules with tissue specificity and enhanced safety which are typically lacking with untargeted agents. This partnership will strengthen our on-going research program in innovative oncology solutions.”
For more information on Pierre Fabre, please visit www.pierre-fabre.com.
For more information on Cellectar Biosciences, please visit www.cellectarbiosciences.com.
