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Biotech / Medical : Corixa [CRXA] - cancer vaccines -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sim1 who wrote (162)	12/4/2002 4:16:14 PM
From: nigel bates	Respond to of 222

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 4, 2002--Corixa Corporation (Nasdaq:CRXA - News), a developer of immunotherapeutics, and Kirin Brewery Co. Ltd., today announced a multiyear development and commercialization agreement for a potential cancer vaccine for the treatment of multiple forms of cancer, including leukemia, myelodysplasia and melanoma. The agreement provides Kirin with exclusive rights to develop and market vaccine products resulting from Corixa's WT1 antigen vaccine program in Asia/Australasia. Corixa and Kirin will share WT1 vaccine commercialization rights as well as development and commercialization costs in North America. Corixa will retain marketing rights for the potential vaccine in Europe and will likely seek a third party partner to assist with development of products in that territory. This agreement is in addition to the existing monoclonal antibody collaboration signed by both companies in June 2001. Under the terms of the WT1 agreement, Kirin will co-fund development of WT1 vaccine products and will pay Corixa $3 million in up front license fees, as well as success-based milestone payments and royalties on future product sales in Asia/Australasia. Further details of the agreement were not disclosed by either company. "Through our initial discovery efforts, we've shown that WT1 is expressed in several tumor types and, therefore, believe it has considerable potential as a vaccine target," said Steven Gillis, Ph.D., chairman and chief executive officer of Corixa. "We are encouraged by our progress to date and the possibility that WT1-based vaccines may be useful in treating a broad range of hematologic cancers. We are pleased to work with Kirin to bring our developments closer to potential human clinical testing." "We are excited to work on WT1 with Corixa," said Katsuhiko Asano, Ph.D., president of Kirin's Pharmaceutical Division. "Kirin has been working on cell therapy and immunotherapy for several years and our vaccination approach with WT1 will give us another weapon in the field of cancer immunotherapy. We are very happy to work with the scientists at Corixa and are confident that WT1 will become a very important therapy for patients with leukemia and other solid tumors." Corixa's WT1 Vaccine Program Corixa has in-licensed the Wilms' tumor antigen (WT1) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. WT1 is substantially overexpressed in up to 80 percent of adult leukemias, including acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), acute lymphatic leukemia (ALL) and myelodysplasia (MDS). The goal of Corixa's WT1 cancer vaccine program is to develop a therapeutic WT1 vaccine that generates a T cell response capable of killing leukemia cells. Data in murine models show that cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) can kill malignant cells that express WT1 with a high degree of safety. In addition to its expression on leukemia cells, WT1 is expressed in several solid tumors, suggesting that this antigen might also prove to be a valid target for a tumor vaccine for other indications. For example, Corixa has demonstrated that human WT1 specific CTL recognize human melanoma and some other cancer cells...