SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN), today announced results from preclinical studies suggesting a significantly greater reduction in tumor growth when AMG 386, a recombinant Fc-peptide fusion protein (peptibody) designed to bind angiopoietins 1 and 2, thereby inhibiting Tie2 dependent stimulation of endothelial cells, was combined with either of two vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) inhibitors -- bevacizumab or motesanib diphosphate (AMG 706) -- compared with either treatment alone (p< 0.05). Angiopoietins, together with VEGFs, are key cytokines that regulate neovascularization. The results of preclinical studies that investigated the growth of human colon tumor cells in this combination were presented at the 2008 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting in San Diego.
