AMT receives funding for gene therapy programme

Dutch company Amsterdam Molecular Therapeutics has been granted a subsidy of Euro 1.8m from the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs for the pre-clinical development of ex vivo gene therapy using interleukin-10 (IL-10) in patients suffering from Crohn's disease.

This financial support is being given as part of the governmental Technical Development Project (TOP) regulation and is repayable once revenues are generated from sales of ex vivo IL-10 gene therapy.

The therapy, pioneered by one of AMT's founders Professor Sander Van Deventer, allows the modulation of T-lymphocytes, such that the cells express the anti-inflammatory protein IL-10. AMT's treatment strategy is particularly designed as a long term maintenance therapy. The animal data, obtained thus far in a mice model for colitis, indicate that transduced T lymphocytes are able to specifically 'home' to the gut mucosa, thereby reducing colitis and resulting in survival and long term maintenance of body weight of the animals, which are primary parameters of effectively suppressed inflammation of the gut. A second advantage of this strategy is that the local expression of IL-10 does not seem to alter systemic immune responses.

AMT licensed rights for IL-10 for ex vivo gene therapy in inflammatory diseases of the gastrointestinal tract from Schering Plough Corp., of New Jersey, US.

AMT was founded in 1998 at the initiative of researchers from the University of Amsterdam at the Academic Medical Center (AMC), one of the largest academic hospitals in the world. AMT is focused on the development and production of virus-based therapeutics and vaccines.