HUMAN antibody therapeutics developer Patrys has acquired a promising new anti-cancer therapeutic, PAM-1,from Europe-based biopharmaceutical developer Debiopharm Group.

Patrys chief executive Dan Devine

Patrys plans to commercialise the therapeutic, which has been shown to kill cancer cells in animal models and bind to a tumour-associated proliferation marker in 93% of 140 tumours tested.

The therapeutic has been effective in a number of cancer types, including gastric and pancreatic animal models of human cancer where it reduced tumour size with no adverse side effects.

PAM-1 was picked up from Debiopharm, a no-research, development-only organisation based in Switzerland and France whose business model is to develop drugs to out-license.

The therapeutic was discovered by OncoMab.

Patrys acquired OncoMab’s natural human antibody technologies and assets in 2007, but the company had already sold the rights to its two most mature products to Debiopharm Group company, Debiovision.

Those were PAM-1 and SC-1, the second of which Patrys acquired last October and renamed PAT-SC-1.

SC-1 is a natural human antibody that has already been shown to give gastric cancer patients a significant survival benefit in an 88-patient Phase 1/2a clinical trial.

Patrys described the PAM-1 deal’s key terms as typical, and while they were confidential the company said financial payments were weighted toward later-stage clinical development and royalties on commercial sales.

Patrys chief executive Dan Devine told BTN the company planned to convert PAM-1 to a proprietary human production technology.

He predicted the conversion would take 12 months and cost $350,000-500,000.

“Then Patrys will decide to either partner or bring forward the internal program,” Devine said.

No new funds are needed, he told BTN.

Devine said PAM-1 was already an exciting product and it would benefit from Patrys’ expertise in the natural human antibody space.

“With the acquisition of PAM-1, a very promising IgG antibody, we have further enhanced the diversity and depth to our pipeline,” he said in an announcement yesterday.

Patrys has renamed the monomeric immunoglobulin PAT-PA1.

For more details on the therapeutic, visit patrys.com.

ASX moves

Patrys closed 0.5c or 5% down to 9.5c yesterday after 100,000 shares were traded.

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