Panacea extends collaboration with MIT

Panacea Pharmaceuticals, Gaithersburg, Md, US has extended and expanded its collaborative research agreement with researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, covering the development of all-human, ultra- affinity, single-chain antibodies for the company's HAAH oncology program. The agreement builds on the collaborative research agreement signed in December of 2000

The Company will continue to fund research activities at MIT up to an additional three years and has an option for exclusive worldwide commercialisation rights to antibodies resulting from the collaboration. The research group is led by Dr K Dane Wittrup, Joseph R. Mares Professor of Chemical Engineering & Bioengineering at MIT.

Currently, antibody drugs and use of antibodies in vivo involve several impediments and limitations, but the antibodies engineered through this breakthrough technology minimise or eliminate the major problems associated with the use of native antibodies. The resulting molecule can be custom engineered to eliminate application-specific issues to facilitate research and product development.

'We've made tremendous progress in producing and isolating highly active antibodies through our collaboration with MIT and are excited to be continuing and expanding our relationship with Dr. Wittrup and his team,' stated Kasra Ghanbari, president of the Company. 'Each one of these molecules holds tremendous potential to expedite the development of therapeutic agents as well as both in vitro and in vivo diagnostic products based on HAAH.'

Background on Yeast Display Technology

The technology utilises a yeast surface display method for engineering antibody fragments of extremely high affinity. The technology was described in the September 2000 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (vol. 97, no. 20, pg. 10701-10705) entitled, "Directed evolution of antibody fragments with monovalent femtomolar antigen-binding affinity." The paper reported the development of single-chain antibody mutants that possessed the highest monovalent ligand-binding affinity yet reported for an engineered protein by over two orders of magnitude.

Background on HAAH Oncology Program

Panacea's HAAH Oncology Program is based on the enzyme human aspartyl (asparaginyl) Beta hydroxylase (HAAH). HAAH over-expression has been detected in primary tumor tissue of more than twenty tumor types tested to date, including cancers of the pancreas, breast, ovary, liver, colon, prostate, lung, brain, and bile duct. HAAH over- expression has been detected in 99% of tumor specimens (greater than 1000) tested to date and has not been detected in normal or adjacent non-affected tissue. Recent findings in preclinical studies have indicated that over-expression of HAAH is sufficient to induce cellular transformation, to increase cell motility and invasiveness, and to establish tumor formation in animals. Even partial inhibition of HAAH expression has been shown to have a beneficial effect on tumor cells, causing them to revert to a more normal phenotype as measured by the inhibition of growth, motility, and invasiveness. HAAH is over-expressed on the surface of cancer cells, potentially facilitating detection, drug delivery, and enzyme inhibition.