CRT presents two programmes for license at BioEurope 2006 in Dusseldorf

Licensing opportunities

Cancer Research Technology Limited (CRT), the technology transfer arm of Europe’s largest medical research charity Cancer Research UK, presented two discovery programmes, protein kinase D (PKD) and migration stimulating factor, (MSF) that are available to license to delegates at the BioEurope 2006 partnering conference in Dusseldorf last week.

MSF is a new anti-angiogenic therapeutic antibody programme under which a panel of highly specific MSF neutralising monoclonal antibodies have been generated. These antibodies block growth of blood vessels ex vivo and invasion in vitro. Initial progress in this programme is extremely encouraging and CRT expects to have further data within the next three months. 

In addition, CRT’s collaborative partners at the University of Dundee, Scotland, are investigating the potential of MSF as a prognostic biomarker by correlating MSF expression with patient survival in a large cohort of breast cancer tissues.

PKD is a novel anti-angiogenic target that is involved in the regulation of cell proliferation, apoptosis and invasion in a variety of cancers. To date, several series of compounds have been identified and developed from a screen of CRT’s compound library. 

Of these, two lead series have been through a hit-to-lead and lead optimisation programme. These series include compounds that show good selectivity, solubility and cell permeability, and have encouraging CYP450 inhibition and microsomal stability profiles.  Cell-based studies have shown initial proof of concept, and the lead compounds are currently undergoing pharmacokinetic studies in advance of proof of efficacy studies.