Biotec Pharmacon and the Radium Hospital/Norwegian National Hospital (Department of Clinical Cancer Research) have signed a Letter of Intent to perform clinical studies to evaluate the efficacy and safety of the company’s pharmaceutical compound SBG in combination with cancer antibodies in patients with lymphoma.
The two parties intend to investigate if SBG in combination with cancer antibodies show higher treatment efficacy than the cancer antibodies alone. If initial studies support this concept, the parties will seek to establish broader therapeutic explorative (phase II) clinical studies, possibly with other hospitals in Norway and abroad. The parties may also agree to perform studies with other cancer types than lymphoma.
SBG from Biotec Pharmacon will first be tested in combination with the cancer antibody Rituxan (Roche) which is used in the treatment of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL). It is the intention of the two parties to initiate studies during the first half of 2006.
Biotec Pharmacon ASA is already carrying out a clinical trial with SBG in combination with cancer antibodies at Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre in New York. Recently, a Letter of Intent was signed with Ullevaal University Hospital to perform clinical trials with SBG in combination with Herceptin against breast cancer. According to Jan Raa, Chief Scientific Officer of Biotec Pharmacon, the Company is delighted to have initiated this latest cooperation with the clinical research unit at the Radium Hospital: “The Radium Hospital is acknowledged as one of the world’s leading cancer research centers. This Letter of Intent continues our strategy to test SBG in combination with several well characterised antibodies against different cancer types.”The total sale of monoclonal cancer antibodies was approximately USD 5 billion in 2004, of which the world-wide sale of Rituxan/MabThera from Roche/Genentech against non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma was approximately USD 2.5 billion.
