Treatment for Cancer (IPP-204106)
Background
In the United States, it is estimated that 1,444,920 people will be diagnosed with cancer in 2007 and 559,650 will die. Based on rates from 2002-2004, 41% of men and women born today will be diagnosed with cancer at some time during their lifetime. This number can also be expressed as 1 in 2 men and women will be diagnosed with some form of cancer during their lifetime.
In the UK, the incidence of cancer was 356,992 in 2004 and mortality due to malignancies was 153,491 in 2005. Similar statistics exist in most other developed countries.
ImmuPharma's compound
IPP-204106 has a dual mechanism of action, acting both in preventing angiogenesis as well as proliferation.
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.
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.
