02/10 12:04 U.S. drug giant [BMY] dumps once-promising cancer drug
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Drug giant Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.
<BMY.N> said on Wednesday it was giving up development of a
once-pomising cancer drug that made global headlines last year after its
success in mice.
Bristol-Myers said it would stop working jointly with EntreMed Inc.
<ENMD.O> to develop the drug, angiostatin, and would cut loose the tiny
biotechnology company to develop it on its own.
"They have a more vested interest in seeing this go forward," Robert
Kramer, vice president for oncology drug discovery at Bristol-Myers
Squibb, said in a telephone interview. "We do, too, but we won't take it
forward until we feel we have dotted the I's and crossed the T's in terms
of getting it into humans."
Angiostatin generated headlines worldwide last year as the great new
hope against cancer after the New York Times featured the drug and its
promise in a front-page article.
Developed by Dr. Judah Folkman of Children's Hospital in Boston, it is
one of a new class of drugs that starve out tumors by stopping them from
growing a blood supply. They are known as angiogenesis inhibitors.
Angiostatin and a sister drug, endostatin, worked very well in mice,
completely curing many of them of their laboratory-induced cancer.
Folkman teamed up with Rockville, Maryland-based EntreMed to develop
the two drugs, and the company's stock shot up on the New York Times
report.
But such drugs require time and painstaking effort to develop, and many
of them never make it to human, or clinical, trials. The company is trying
to genetically engineer yeast to produce human versions of angiostatin.
Scientists at the National Cancer Institute, who also were working with
EntreMed and Folkman, said they had trouble producing enough
endostatin to test on people.
EntreMed's stock fell on that news.
It fell even farther on Wednesday after the Bristol-Myers announcement.
EntreMed's shares were down 11 5/8 at 12 7/8 on Nasdaq in late morning
trading.
Bristol-Myers couched its announcement in careful terms, saying that it
was revising its agreement with EntreMed.
"At this time, angiostatin protein in its present form does not meet our
criteria for molecules that advance to clinical trials," Kramer said in a
statement.
But Kramer said if EntreMed's could make angiostatin work on its own,
Bristol-Myers help bring the drug to market. He said Bristol would work on
its own angiogenesis inhibitors.
"Angiostatin posed enough challenges that it would encumber us from
trying to run with these ideas, whereas for EntreMed, this is one of their
primary areas that they have," Kramer said.
Big drug companies often team up with small biotechnology firms to
develop new compounds. The big company sometimes underwrites the
research. More often, the smaller company takes the risks and must work
hard to prove a drug works before the larger firm takes any financial
liability.
Dr. John Holaday, chairman, president and chief executive officer of
EntreMed, said his company would move ahead with angiostatin.
"EntreMed's development plan for angiostatin will include scale-up ...
manufacturing of the protein for clinical trials and submission of an
Investigational New Drug application (with the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration) this year," Holaday said.
Several other angiogenesis inhibitors are in human trials, including Sugen
Inc.'s <SUGN.O> SU5416, EntreMed's thalidomide and British Biotech's
<BBG.L> Marimastat. Magainin Pharmaceuticals Inc. <MAGN.O> is
testing squalamine, derived from dogfish sharks, in Phase I safety trials.
Canadian biotech company AEterna Laboratories <AEL.TO> is in Phase
III clinical trials with another shark-based angiogenesis inhibitor,
Neovastat.
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