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Immunomedics, Inc. (Nasdaq: IMMU - news) today reported that several presentations made at the Society of Nuclear Medicine Meeting addressed the safety and efficacy of its radiolabeled therapeutic antibody product, LymphoCide(TM). LymphoCide is a humanized antibody against CD22, which is expressed by normal and malignant B-lymphocytes. It was reported that LymphoCide, labeled with yttrium-90, demonstrated therapeutic responses in ongoing clinical studies.
In a study presented by Dr. Malik Juweid of the Garden State Cancer Center in Belleville, NJ, together with collaborators from Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and Inserm, Nantes, France, it was found that 12 of 17 patients with aggressive NHL, who failed prior chemotherapy and in some cases bone marrow transplantation, showed an objective response (50-100% reduction of all tumor).
``This 71% objective response rate in very difficult-to-treat patients given doses which are still below the maximum tolerated dose encourages us to expand these trials as fast as possible, especially with higher doses, since few treatment options are available for these patients,'' Dr. Juweid remarked.
``LymphoCide, in an unlabeled form also known as epratuzumab, will soon begin Phase III trials for the treatment of low grade, follicular, NHL in patients who have failed prior therapies,'' Dr. Goldenberg, Immunomedic's Chairman and CEO stated. ``We are most encouraged with the responses and safety profile found in Phase II trials, and now hope that our second therapeutic product, 90-Y-LymphoCide, will find an application in patients who are not as responsive to the unlabeled epratuzumab,'' he added. |
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