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Drug Delivery specialist celares GmbH starts extensive contract development for Max-Planck-Institute for Infection Biology. |
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15 Sep 2006 |
The Max-Planck-Institute for Infection Biology, Berlin (MPIIB), has isolated a novel protein (APIT) from the ink of a sea snail. APIT will be developed to a drug against cancer by APIT Laboratories GmbH, a spin-off company of the MPIIB.
BERLIN, Germany | Sep 14, 2006 | The Max-Planck-Institute for Infection Biology, Berlin (MPIIB), has isolated a novel protein (APIT) from the ink of a sea snail. APIT will be developed to a drug against cancer by APIT Laboratories GmbH, a spin-off company of the MPIIB.
Healthy cells age and die off according to a programmed cell death (apoptosis) after a certain time. In contrast, resistance against apoptosis is characteristic for cancer cells and prevents their natural elimination. Many current anti-cancer therapies take advantage of this anomaly. However, the development of drug resistances is a common problem preventing success of such therapies. Research of the team of Dr. Thomas Rudel at the MPIIB has demonstrated that APIT is capable of destroying even multi-drug-resistant cancer cells both completely and specifically in an apoptosis independent manner by a novel enzymatic mechanism.
In this context, the drug delivery specialist celares GmbH has been commissioned by the MPIIB to develop a PEGylation tailored to APIT. PEGylation is the modification of a drug with polyethylene glycol. In this way the stability of APIT against natural degradation processes and its in-vivo half-life can be significantly improved. The resulting new APIT drugs will be tested at the MPIIB.
Proprietary CelaSYS-PEGylation reagents of celares GmbH will be used for this project. CelaSYS-PEGylation reagents can be distinguished from the reagents of competitors by their hyper-branched structure and unique monodispersed quality.
This research project of the MPIIB has been facilitated with funds from the program ProFIT by the Investitionsbank Berlin. APIT Laboratories GmbH has an option for commercial realization of results from this project.
SOURCE: Celares |
