An Orange County biopharmaceutical company involved in a joint venture to develop new cancer therapies is hailing a new scientific journal study that it says validates its work.
Cancer Research recently published a study by several Swiss researchers that featured vascular targeting agent technology being developed by Arcus Therapeutics LLC. Arcus is a joint venture between Peregrine Pharmaceuticals Inc., formerly Techniclone Corp., Tustin, and Watertown, Mass.-based Oxigene Inc.
Publication of the research helps Arcus’ credibility going forward, according to Edward Legere, Peregrine’s acting chief executive.
“Any time you get an outside group that uses your technology with very similar or the same results, it proves that there isn’t some lone cowboy” that’s using it, he said.
Specifically, a group of researchers at the Institute of Pharmaceutical Studies in Zurich, Switzerland, injected cancerous laboratory mice with blood-clotting proteins tied to agents that seek out blood vessels in tumors. Once in the mice, the proteins created clots that blocked blood flow to the mice’s tumors, shrinking or eliminating them altogether. Dr. Dario Neri, a professor of biomacromolecules at the institute, led the team.
The work comes under a patent Arcus has for vascular targeting agents, Legere said. Such agents are designed to cut off the supply of oxygen and nutrients to malignant tumor cells while not affecting healthy tissues. Legere noted that the Cancer Research study showed that blood clots did not form where they weren’t supposed to.
The Swiss researchers’ work followed a 1997 study published in Science magazine by Dr. Philip Thorpe, a researcher who is credited as the inventor of vascular targeting agents. Thorpe is a consultant to Arcus.
Legere, however, pointed out that the Swiss study used a different carrier agent than the one used in Thorpe’s study.
“Instead of stopping the tumor’s growth, (these agents) kill the tumor,” said Legere.
Even with the study, Arcus’ technology still has to go through three stages of human clinical trials before it will be considered for approval by the Food and Drug Administration, Legere said.
“It will be years before (the technology) is out there, helping patients,” he said.
Peregrine and Oxigene formed Arcus in May in order to develop the agents. Oxigene, which is also publicly traded, provides the binding compounds for the joint venture.
Peregrine, which employs 23 people in Orange County, has developed other compounds that target cell structures and types as a means to attack solid tumors without damaging surrounding healthy tissue. Additionally, Peregrine has a direct tumor-targeting agent that treats advance non-Hodgkin’s B-cell lymphoma that has been licensed to Schering AG in Germany. n
