BioInvent International AB (OMXS:BINV), a biotech company developing novel antibody therapeutics for treatment of cancer, today announced that the April 15, 2013 online issue of the highly prestigious cancer research journal Cancer Cell features a data publication demonstrating potent anti-cancer activity of BI-505 in multiple preclinical myeloma tumor models. BI-505 is currently in Phase I clinical testing and is furthest ahead among several novel antibody candidates that have emerged from the company's unique function-first platform "F.I.R.S.T.™", which enables combined target and antibody drug discovery.
“BI-505 binds very specifically to intercellular adhesion molecule 1 (ICAM-1), a receptor which is highly expressed on multiple myeloma cancer cells as well as implicated in myeloma pathogenesis and development of drug-resistance, the current inevitable end-stage of this aggressive disease”
"BI-505 is BioInvent's first therapeutic antibody isolated by target unbiased functional screening to enter clinical trials. BioInvent researchers identified this antibody based on its significant ability to confer tumor cell death in preclinical B cell cancer models, amongst tens of billions antibodies present in the company's human antibody library n-CoDeR®", said Björn Frendéus, Ph.D., Vice President, Preclinical Research of BioInvent International AB and senior author on the paper. "BI-505 binds very specifically to intercellular adhesion molecule 1 (ICAM-1), a receptor which is highly expressed on multiple myeloma cancer cells as well as implicated in myeloma pathogenesis and development of drug-resistance, the current inevitable end-stage of this aggressive disease".
ICAM-1 is a cell adhesion molecule that has previously been pursued as target for antibody based therapy, but then in chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, based on its well-characterized role in inflammation. Cristina Glad, CEO of BioInvent, said, "BI-505 is one of several antibodies that BioInvent is developing for treatment of cancer. BI-505 induces cell death in target tumor cells and activates host antitumor immunity in a manner that would not have been predicted from currently available information on the biology of ICAM-1. This molecule illustrates how our unique F.I.R.S.T.™ platform broadens the therapeutic target space by uncovering previously unrecognized functions of known targets, pointing to their therapeutic utility in new indications".
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