Immupharma Regulatory News (IMM)

20 May 2008 07:00



ImmuPharma PLC

ImmuPharma's cancer drug candidate IPP- 204106 shows complete response to tumours in multiple human cancer cell lines

ImmuPharma PLC (LSE:IMM), ("ImmuPharma" or the "Company"), the specialist drug discovery and development company, announces today pre-clinical data on its new cancer drug, IPP-204106.

Data on ImmuPharma's anti-cancer nucleolin antagonist ("Nucant") peptide programme, IPP-204106 have been obtained confirming the ability of the compounds to effectively control and stop the growth of a large panel of human cancer cell lines both "in vitro" and "in vivo". Collectively the studies comprised breast cancer, prostate cancer, melanoma, glioblastoma, leukaemia, colon cancer and pancreatic cancer cell lines.

The schedule of administration was typically 10 injections over 2 weeks at doses in the range of 1 mg/kg body weight. "In vivo" studies showed that the majority of tumours were completely eradicated and survival time increased without additional treatment.

ImmuPharma has filed appropriate patents on the composition of matter relating to the peptides covering a large variety of Nucant structures. Manufacturing processes transferable to large scale production have also been successfully developed.

Due to the considerable progress made, ImmuPharma has initiated the regulatory studies necessary for the development program of IPP-204106, and ImmuPharma is pursuing grant opportunities from the French national research agencies.

In addition to cancer indications, ImmuPharma believes that Nucants could have use in other areas such as psoriasis, wound healing and diabetic retinopathy and these are currently under investigation in research programs conducted by the CNRS teams and ImmuPharma.

Richard Warr, ImmuPharma's Chairman, commented: 

For further information please contact: 

For further company information, visit www.immupharma.com

About Nucants

Nucants are pseudo-peptides which selectively bind to the nucleolin expressed at the surface of the cells. Located essentially, antagonist peptides in the nucleus of normal cells where it is protected, nucleolin is much more abundant (often 30 times more) at the surface of the cells which are proliferating as well as the surface of active endothelial cells where it can be a target for antagonist peptides.

Cell surface expressed nucleolin is also a receptor for many growth factors and plays a key role in angiogenesis. Numerous papers have been published demonstrating the role of nucleolin in stabilization of mRNAs (among them Bcl2 mRNA targeted by Taxol derivatives and gastrin mRNA involved in pancreatic cancer) in the nucleus. This stabilization is required for protein synthesis and therefore cell proliferation. Blocking nucleolin destabilizes mRNAs and prevents proliferation. Nucants and IPP-204106 in particular have therefore both anti-angiogenic and anti-proliferative properties. Anti-angiogenesis alone has been a target in the pharmaceutical industry for cancer, so has inhibition of proliferation. ImmuPharma's Nucant programme targets both approaches and this dual mechanism makes it particularly effective.