Progenics broadens collaboration with Seattle Genetics for prostate cancer therapy

By E. Janene Geiss

Philadelphia, May 25 - Progenics Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced Thursday the expansion of its collaboration with Seattle Genetics, Inc. to include activities intended to accelerate the manufacture and development of Progenics' prostate-specific membrane antigen antibody-drug conjugate.

Under the expanded collaboration, Seattle Genetics will develop and optimize certain methods suitable for manufacturing and testing prostate-specific membrane antigen antibody-drug conjugate to support studies in humans, according to a company news release.

The new agreement is designed to accelerate development of this product by leveraging Seattle Genetics' prior experience in antibody-drug conjugate process development and testing, officials said.

Progenics said it is responsible for fees and milestone payments in addition to those already provided under the parties' existing collaborative agreement established in June 2005.

Progenics said it intends to begin phase 1 clinical studies during 2007 with the fully human antibody-drug conjugate.

Progenics also said Thursday that findings on its prostate-specific membrane antibody-drug conjugate program were published in the current issue of Clinical Cancer Research.

Top line results from this study originally were reported by the company in September.

In a mouse model of human prostate cancer, prostate-specific membrane antibody-drug conjugate significantly prolonged overall survival up to nine-fold as compared to untreated animals.

Remarkably, established tumors in two of the five animals treated at the highest dose were eradicated and remained undetectable more than 500 days through the completion of the study. No overt toxicity was observed in any of the treated animals, officials said.

Prostate-specific membrane is a protein abundantly expressed on the surface of prostate cancer cells, with an increased expression in high-grade cancers, metastatic disease and hormone-refractory prostate cancer.

Prostate-specific membrane antibody-drug conjugate is a fully human monoclonal antibody to prostate-specific membrane linked to a derivative of auristatin, a highly potent cytotoxic drug, using Seattle Genetics' proprietary antibody-drug conjugate technology.

The monoclonal antibody portion binds prostate-specific membrane with high affinity and specificity, thereby targeting the cytotoxic drug to cancer cells.

Progenics is a Tarrytown, N.Y., biopharmaceutical company.

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