Primezone Media Network
April 15, 2008
SAN DIEGO -- Immunomedics, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing monoclonal antibodies to treat cancer and other serious diseases, announced today that milatuzumab, its humanized anti-CD74 antibody, showed in animal models promising therapeutic activity for multiple myeloma when used alone or in combination with bortezomib and lenalidomide in cell culture systems. Both of these drugs are approved for the treatment of multiple myeloma.
Milatuzumab also was tested in comparison to and in combination with bortezomib in mice bearing human multiple myeloma cell lines. Median survival time (MST) for untreated animals was 33 days. Bortezomib alone increased MST to 44 days, while treatment with milatuzumab alone increased survival further to 73 days. When bortezomib and milatuzumab treatments were combined, the MST increased to 93 days.
"These encouraging preclinical results and the fact that milatuzumab inhibits the NF-kB survival pathway of chronic lymphocytic leukemic cells, we believe support the use of milatuzumab in combination with drugs having different mechanisms of action, such as bortezomib," commented Cynthia L. Sullivan, President and CEO. "Once we complete our dose-escalation trial for milatuzumab in multiple myeloma, we believe these results suggest that a logical next step would be to evaluate the antibody in combinations with approved drugs for this disease," she added.
About Milatuzumab
Milatuzumab is a humanized anti-CD74 antibody constructed using the same constant regions of the heavy and light chains as epratuzumab, whose safety has been demonstrated in clinical trials of patients with B-cell malignancies and autoimmune disorders. Milatuzumab is being studied for the treatment of multiple myeloma, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), and chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).
About Immunomedics
Immunomedics is a New Jersey-based biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of monoclonal, antibody-based products for the targeted treatment of cancer, autoimmune and other serious diseases. We have developed a number of advanced proprietary technologies that allow us to create humanized antibodies that can be used either alone in unlabeled or "naked" form, or conjugated with radioactive isotopes, chemotherapeutics or toxins, in each case to create highly targeted agents. Using these technologies, we have built a pipeline of therapeutic product candidates that utilize several different mechanisms of action. We have exclusively licensed our lead product candidate, epratuzumab, to UCB for the treatment of all autoimmune disease indications worldwide. Epratuzumab's most advanced clinical testing is for the treatment of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and in NHL. At present, there is no cure for lupus and no new lupus drug has been approved in the U.S. in the last 40 years. We have retained the rights for epratuzumab in oncology indications, and are advancing trials in lymphoma and in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia in cooperation with National Cancer Institute Study Groups. In addition, the Company is conducting clinical trials with intravenous veltuzumab in patients with NHL and immune thrombocytopenic purpura, subcutaneous veltuzumab in NHL and CLL, 90Y-epratuzumab for the therapy of patients with lymphoma, 90Y-hPAM4 combined with gemcitabine for pancreatic cancer therapy, and milatuzumab (anti-CD74 humanized antibody) as a therapy for patients with multiple myeloma, NHL, and CLL.
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