2005 - Arrowhead Accelerates Capital Contribution to Insert Therapeutics as Nanotechnology Cancer Drug Heads toward Human Clinical Trials
10/11/2005 11:20:29 PM
Arrowhead Research Corp. a diversified nanotechnology company providing the missing link between lab and marketplace, has accelerated its investment of an additional $3 million to majority-owned subsidiary Insert Therapeutics, Inc.
Insert's lead anti-cancer drug, IT-101, has achieved complete remission of non-small cell lung cancer and Ewing's sarcoma, and significant knockdown of other tumor types in preclinical results in mouse xenografts, showing promise across a wide range of cancers.
The company is currently preparing to enter IT-101 into human clinical trials at the City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center in Duarte, Calif.
"We have continued confidence in the power of Insert's technology," said R. Bruce Stewart, president of Arrowhead. "This contribution satisfies our funding obligation and solidifies our 68.5 percent ownership in this subsidiary."
Insert Therapeutics controls a portfolio of U.S. and foreign issued patents and pending applications covering therapeutics based on linear cyclodextrin-containing polymers, which comprises Insert's Cyclosert family of drug delivery polymers. IT-101 is a combination of Insert's proprietary Cyclosert platform and the potent anti-cancer compound camptothecin. Camptothecin has never been approved for use in humans due to its insolubility, toxicity, instability in human blood serum and poor pharmacokinetics, but approved analogues of the drug, irinotecan and topotecan, have demonstrated $1 billion in reported annual sales worldwide. In the mouse xenograft studies against a variety of cancer types, camptothecin enhanced by conjugation with Cyclosert proved to be more effective at lower doses compared to irinotecan.
Cyclosert was invented in the Caltech lab of chemical engineering professor and Insert founder Dr. Mark Davis, who used "molecular design" to create Cyclosert. This methodology involves the design and construction of functional materials using molecular building blocks.
For more information about Cyclosert and Insert's preclinical results, visit Insert's website at insertt.com.
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Link to ArrowHead Research
arrowres.com
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