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

To: nigel bates who wrote (758)	12/8/2005 12:28:30 PM
From: John McCarthy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1022

Cancer breakthrough for drugs researcher A breakthrough in cancer treatment has been made by Cambridge company Domantis. The company says it has found a way of killing cancer cells without destroying healthy neighbouring cells. Domantis, which specialises in human antibodies as a means of developing new drugs, has also this week signed a major collaboration deal with Bristol-Myers Squibb worth $9.2m in upfront and guaranteed research payments, plus milestone payments of up to $20m per product, as well as royalties on product sales. Domantis was founded in 2000 by Sir Gregory Winter and Dr Ian Tomlinson, both world-renowned in their field. Sir Gregory also co-founded Cambridge Antibody Technology. News of the cancer breakthrough was made this week at an international conference on antibody engineering in San Diego. Dr Tomlinson said: "Our scientists have shown in a series of experiments that dual targeting domain antibodies which bind to two different antigens on the surface of tumour cells can kill those tumour cells while healthy cells that express only one or neither of the antigens, are spared. "This is a completely novel approach to tumour targeting that dramatically enhances the potency of the targeting agents by focusing its activity on tumour cells." Dr Tomlinson added: "This cannot be achieved using conventional antibodies which bind to a single target and typically kill both cancerous and non-cancerous cells." Domantis is currently concentrating on multiple myeloma, small cell lung cancer, and colorectal cancer, but more importantly, the company is developing what it believes will be the next generation of cancer drugs which will be both more effective and less toxic than current treatment. A spokesman for the company said: "This is so elegant, and works so beautifully, but it is in the very early stages and will not be ready for use for a number of years." As well as treating cancer, this new approach using domain antibodies is expected to be effective against asthma and a number of other conditions and diseases. The company has a collaboration agreement with Abbott Labs, and now the deal with BMS to find a new range of domain antibodies to stimulate T-cells which are part of the human immune system but improssible to reach with existing antibody research. cambridge-news.co.uk