A shift in strategy by DuPont Pharmaceuticals brings both good and bad news for AnorMed of Vancouver. The Canadian company's technology will no longer be used in a DuPont clinical trial as a pulmonary emboli imaging agent, but will be applied to a new trial as an inflammation imaging agent.
AnorMed's product is a hynic linker that binds Technetium-99m to biological molecules, such as antibodies and peptides, for disease targeting. It was used in the third phase of the DuPont trial for DMP-444, an imaging agent for the evaluation of blood clotting in the lungs. However, DuPont has decided to cease working on DMP-444 because of questionable market potential, according to AnorMed. Instead, the hynic linker technology will be used for the testing of RP-157, an imaging agent that detects inflammation.
The switch will not cause any major setbacks at AnorMed because the company's main focus is on therapeutic drugs for cancer and other diseases, and not diagnostic imaging, according to Dr. Michael Abrams, president and chief executive officer.
By AuntMinnie.com staff writersMay 8, 2000
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