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Biotech / Medical : progenics -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: keokalani'nui who wrote (68)	12/19/2002 3:52:52 PM
From: keokalani'nui	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 139

sigh... Cytogen and Progenics Initiate Phase I Clinical Testing of New Therapeutic Prostate Cancer Vaccine Thursday December 19, 5:00 am ET PRINCETON, N.J. & TARRYTOWN, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 19, 2002--The PSMA Development Company LLC, a joint venture of Cytogen Corporation (Nasdaq: CYTO - News) and Progenics Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: PGNX - News), today announced the initiation of a Phase I clinical trial for a novel prostate cancer vaccine directed against prostate-specific membrane antigen, or PSMA. ADVERTISEMENT This vaccine combines the PSMA cancer antigen with an immune stimulant to induce an immune response against prostate cancer cells as foreign and to eliminate them. The genetically engineered PSMA vaccine generated potent immune responses in preclinical animal testing. "This clinical trial is the first of a series designed to elicit potent and durable immune responses to PSMA, a protein that is highly expressed on prostate cancer cells," said Howard I. Scher, M.D., chief, Genitourinary Oncology Service, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. "The new vaccine contains a recombinant PSMA protein that mimics the form of PSMA found on the surface of prostate cancer cells. As PSMA is uniquely found on the surface of prostate cancer cells and its expression increases with disease progression, it provides a highly attractive target for cancer immunotherapy." The PSMA Development Company has produced a synthetic or recombinant soluble human PSMA (rsPSMA) protein in a highly purified form suitable for human clinical testing. In this initial clinical study, the rsPSMA protein is combined with a potent immunological stimulant, or adjuvant, to form the vaccine product which will be administered in four subcutaneous injections over a period of eight weeks. The current clinical trial is designed to evaluate the safety and immune-stimulating properties of the vaccine in patients with either newly diagnosed or recurrent prostate cancer. The joint venture is also pursuing a parallel vaccine development program that utilizes a novel viral vector to deliver the PSMA gene to the immune system. In animal studies, both experimental vaccines have generated potent and specific immune responses to cell-surface PSMA. In future trials, these two vaccines may be combined to elicit both cellular (killer T cells) and humoral (antibodies) responses directed against prostate cancer cells. "We have successfully produced a novel vaccine candidate that faithfully duplicates the PSMA molecular structure as it is expressed on prostate cancer cells," said Michael Becker, president and chief executive officer of Cytogen Corporation. "We believe that such a therapeutic vaccine has the potential to induce a clinically relevant immune response in patients, and that PSMA-targeted therapies may hold great promise for the treatment of newly diagnosed and recurrent prostate cancer." In addition to the two vaccine programs directed at stimulating a patient's immune system against cancer, the PSMA Development Company also has a therapeutic antibody program that includes "naked", radiolabelled, and toxin-conjugated monoclonal antibodies directed against PSMA. Human monoclonal antibodies are laboratory-produced "clones" of antibodies that are formed by the body in response to specific antigens or "foreign" invaders. Antigens are molecular structures found on the surface of infectious agents, tumor cells, or foreign tissue cells. The PSMA gene was first discovered by scientists at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City and is exclusively licensed to Cytogen Corporation, which has sublicensed it to the PSMA Development Company for in vivo immunotherapy. PSMA is a cell-surface protein abundantly expressed on prostate cancer cells and therefore is an attractive target for vaccine and antibody-based cancer immunotherapies. Further work demonstrated that PSMA is also present at high levels within newly formed blood vessels (neovasculature) needed for the growth and survival of solid tumors. These observations suggest that if PSMA-targeted may be valuable in treating a broad range of cancers.