Melbourne, Australia; 16 September, 2009: Australia’s natural human antibody therapy company, Patrys Limited (ASX: PAB), announced today that lead product PAT-SM6 effectively prevented colon cancer metastases in a series of recently completed preclinical animal studies.
PAT-SM6, which will be tested in a first-in-human clinical trial expected to commence this calendar year, represents one of the many promising antibodies in Patrys’ therapeutic product pipeline.
The recently completed studies were conducted by independent researchers and were designed to test PAT-SM6’s ability to prevent the metastatic spread of colon cancer to the liver.
In the 19 animals treated with PAT-SM6, the median number of tumours that spread from the colon to the liver was decreased by approximately 50% as compared to the corresponding control group. This statistically significant result demonstrates the promise of PAT-SM6 as an effective treatment for the prevention of colon cancer metastases.
Dr. Christoph Otto, a medical oncologist and one of the lead investigators for the preclinical studies, said “the results of these studies indicate that PAT-SM6 offers great potential in terms of preventing colon cancer metastases, which is critically important because in most cases it is the spread of colon cancer to other organs that ultimately kills the patient.”
“Products with this type of therapeutic potential are in high demand from the medical community given that currently approved cancer treatments are largely ineffective at preventing such metastases,” added Dr. Otto.
Dr. Frank Hensel, Patrys’ Vice President, Research and Development, added “the result of these studies reinforces earlier reported results where PAT-SM6 showed the ability to prevent the spread of gastric cancer in preclinical animal studies. Looking forward, the ability of PAT-SM6 to consistently perform in these studies across a number of different cancers gives our team added confidence in the endpoints we hope to achieve in the upcoming human clinical trial for PAT-SM6.”
About Patrys Limited:
Based in Melbourne, Australia, Patrys (ASX: PAB) is focused on the development of natural human antibodies as therapies for cancer and other major diseases. Patrys has a deep pipeline of anti-cancer natural human antibodies that enable both internal development and partnering opportunities. More information can be found at www.patrys.com.
About PAT-SM6:
The natural human antibody PAT-SM6 has been shown to have potent anti-cancer properties in a large number of laboratory and animal studies. PAT-SM6 binds to a proprietary cancer associated disease target that is expressed on the surface of cancer cells but not healthy tissues. Patrys has now screened PAT-SM6 against more than 200 tumours from individual patients with various cancers, and the product binds to over 90% of the tumours screened regardless of the patient’s cancer type, age, gender or disease stage. Patrys has filed patent applications to cover the PAT-SM6 molecule, its disease target, and its mechanism of action.
About cancer metastases and existing treatments:
For cancer indications with high mortality rates, primary tumours are often effectively dealt with by surgery, radiation or approved drugs. However, before those primary tumours are identified by a medical professional, cancer cells have usually taken the opportunity to leave the primary tumour and spread to other parts of the body to form secondary tumours (called “metastases”). In a vast majority of cases, it is the spread of cancer cells beyond the primary tumour to other vital organs and tissues that ultimately causes patients to die. Currently approved treatments are largely ineffective at preventing or treating metastases. As a result, there is strong demand from medical and patient communities for treatments that target cancer that aggressively spreads to other parts of the body. Patrys has focused its programs on these indications.
About colon cancer metastases and testing of products in relevant preclinical animal models:
One of every three patients with colon cancer dies within five years of diagnosis. A vast majority of these deaths result from metastases. Given these facts, it is critical to develop and deploy preclinical testing models that help identify products with therapeutic potential for the treatment of colon cancer metastases. The preclinical animal models utilised in the studies discussed above, which test a product’s ability to reduce colon cancer metastases, were carefully developed to mimic, as closely as possible, aspects of that disease in humans.
