CXCR4 (Copied from Yahoo!)
messages.finance.yahoo.com
I am a bit excited about the CXCR4 inhibitor as I have read about the importance of CCR5 and CXCR5 inhibition to the blocking of HIV. There are numerous CCR5 inhibitors in development - perhaps as many as a dozen. Pfizer is about to file, and Schering could file in another year or two. AnorMED also has a CCR5 inhibitor in preclinical. Boring.
But apparently AnorMED has the only CXCR4 inhibitor in clinical development. That's exciting. If the early data are promising, I would expect Pfizer (for one) would be very interested in acquiring rights to it. It could end up paying for MLNM's acquisition of AnorMED by itself - over several years.
From the circular that mlnm00 posted:
>>AnorMED is developing drugs that block the CXCR4-using virus. The most advanced of these, called AMD070, is in Phase II clinical trials. AnorMED is also advancing drugs that block CCR5 through preclinical development. Leading pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and Schering-Plough have focused on the clinical development of CCR5 inhibitors since that virus is more prevalent. Pfizer is the current leader in the development of CCR5 blockers; it is anticipated that preliminary data from its Phase III trials will be presented at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in February 2007. Pfizer has publicly stated that it intends to file an NDA with the FDA for its CCR5 inhibitor maraviroc in the fourth quarter of 2006. To our knowledge, AnorMED is the only company with an oral CXCR4 inhibitor in clinical development for HIV.
Pfizer and Schering's clinical development programs on CCR5 blockers have revealed some very provocative results. Some patients that entered into the trials with virus that used only CCR5 have shown progression during the trial to virus that can use CXCR4. As yet it is undetermined if the emergence of the CXCR4-using virus would result in a worsening condition for the patients, but this observation has heightened interest from pharmaceutical companies, academics, and regulatory agencies to examine drug combinations containing both CCR5 and CXCR4 antagonists.
The importance of combining CCR5 and CXCR4 blockers was also recently highlighted in data from Pfizer presented at the recent International AIDS Conference in Toronto in August 2006. (Note that virtually all HIV patients who receive therapy are treated with combinations of drugs). Patients infected with both the CCR5 and CXCR4 using virus, and treated with a CCR5 blocker but not a CXCR4 blocker, failed to demonstrate a reduction in the total amount of virus in their blood at the 24-week primary endpoint of the trial. A 24-week period is adequate to see an effect from any currently approved therapy, and is also the standard length of a trial for accelerated regulatory approval of a novel HIV drug in the United States. These recent findings have lead to increased interest in the potential of a CXCR4 inhibitor that can be used in combination with a CCR5 inhibitor, and thus in AnorMED's AMD070, the most advanced candidate in the class. If such studies showed improved outcomes for patients, they would have important implications for AMD070 and other earlier stage AnorMED programs.
AMD070 is an orally available small molecule inhibitor of the CXCR4 chemokine receptor. AMD070 is currently recruiting in two proof-of-principle trials to evaluate safety and preliminary efficacy inhibiting HIV entry in HIV infected patients. One trial is being conducted in collaboration with the United States Adult AIDS Clinical Trial Group (""ACTG''), and the other is the AnorMED-sponsored XACT trial.<< |
