NEWARK, N.J. and SIENA, Italy, today announced that -- Actinium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Philogen S.p.A today announced that they have entered into a collaboration agreement under which the companies will explore feasibility and best uses of adding actinium 225 as a payload to Philogen's L19 antibody constructs. In the approach known as antiangiogenesis, L19 targets newly formed blood vessels that allow cancers to grow.
Antiangiogenesis is a successful approach to treating numerous cancer types. Currently approved antiangiogenesis drugs act mostly by interfering with the signaling pathway used by cancer cells to stimulate growth of blood vessels. In most cases, cancer cells eventually find alternative ways to spur blood vessels growth. In contrast, Philogen's L19 targets adhesion molecules that anchor blood vessel cells which makes it less susceptible to cancer controlled pathways. Depending on the architecture of vasculature and its proximity to cancer stem cells, actinium 225 could potentially offer an effective combination of properties tailor made for certain cancer types.
"We believe that this program has a significant potential that could potentially be leveraged in a number of cancer indications," said Duccio Neri, Co-founder and CEO of Philogen S.p.A. and Dragan Cicic, MD, CEO of Actinium Pharmaceuticals. "We have followed each company's work for years and are very pleased that we now have an opportunity to collaborate on Philogen's novel approach to the field of antiangiogenesis by extending into an alpha emitter approach using the powerful radioisotope actinium."
PR Newswire