Pharmaceutical firm Immunomedics and its majority-owned subsidiary IBC Pharmaceuticals are reporting favorable research from three presentations at the annual meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine. A new PET cancer diagnostic agent, called ImmunoPET, features a peptide designed to carry the gallium-68 PET isotope to cancer cells that express the tumor antigen carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA).
Combining PET imaging and a bispecific antibody that has one arm binding to the CEA on the tumor and the other arm binding to the peptide carrying Ga-68, the two-step process enables selective delivery of the gallium-PET agent to the tumor, according to the Morris Plains, NJ-based vendor. As a result, very high tumor-to-normal tissue ratios were achieved within hours after injection for all animal organs bearing human colon cancer transplants, according to the firm.
Immunomedics also highlighted positive results with a work-in-progress SPECT imaging agent for pancreatic cancer applications. In research testing bispecific antibodies made with a pancreatic cancer antibody, PAM4, and a second antibody directed against a divalent peptide carrying indium-111 for SPECT imaging, the company has found that PAM4 recognizes more than 85% of pancreatic cancers tested to date.
The study, which included researchers from the Garden State Cancer Center in Belleville, NJ, and scientists from Immunomedics and IBC, concluded that the pre-targeting system can provide improved imaging of transplanted human pancreatic cancer. The firm is also developing PAM4 as a potential therapeutic for pancreatic cancer.
In other research, Immunomedics' CEA-Scan colorectal cancer imaging agent was found to be safe for serial imaging, according to researchers from the Bay Pines Veterans Administration Medical Center in Florida. CEA-Scan can be administered at least three times to patients without any changes or adverse effects noted, Immunomedics said of the research.
By AuntMinnie.com staff writersJune 24, 2003
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