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Horizon Discovery and Cylene Pharmaceuticals Collaborate in Rational Selection of Patients for Clinical Trials
October 19, 2010
Horizon Discovery Ltd (Horizon) and Cylene Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Cylene) have entered into a collaboration to maximize potential patient benefit from Cylene's novel anticancer agent, the companies announced today. The collaboration will utilize Horizon's X-MAN™ proprietary human isogenic cancer cell-lines, which represent accurate models of defined cancer patient populations and their matched normal genetic backgrounds. These cell-lines will be used to pinpoint patients who will respond best to Cylene's first-in-class CK2 inhibitor, CX-4945. This partnership between two leaders in their respective fields could result in a significant reduction in research costs and acceleration of timelines for regulatory approval.
Horizon has identified Cylene's novel clinical CK2 inhibitor as an ideal drug to exploit their cutting-edge biological tools and services that can potentially accelerate the development of personalized cancer medicines. CX-4945 is the first and only CK2 inhibitor to have entered clinical trials and represents a potential treatment for many different cancers. The X-MAN panel of over 250 genetically-defined human cell-lines is ideally suited for identifying those specific cancer patients who will gain the most benefit from the compound. The collaboration seeks to identify the genetic factors in cancer that determine the greatest sensitivity to CX-4945. This innovative approach could significantly decrease development times and provide increased success in clinical trials for this drug.
Dr. Kenna Anderes, VP Cancer Biology, Cylene, commented: "CX-4945 is the first drug in the clinic that targets the kinase CK2, a protein that is over expressed in many diverse cancers. Successful exploitation of this novel molecular target to treat cancers absolutely requires an understanding of the genetic mutations and molecular pathways to which the tumor has become reliant, i.e. the context of vulnerability. We feel confident that Horizon.s expertise will provide an effective and efficient way of defining the most responsive cancer patient population."
Dr. Chris Torrance, CEO of Horizon Discovery Ltd, said: "There is now an abundance of information on how cancer arises and progresses and we also know that onset, progression and response to drugs is substantially different from one patient to another. Consequently, the old 'one-size-fits-all' approach to cancer drug development and prescription will need to move towards a more 'targeted' or 'personalized' paradigm". Dr. Torrance went on to say: "The time and costs associated with finding new treatments need to fall drastically to benefit drug developers, healthcare reimbursers, tax-payers and patients alike. We are honored to be working with Cylene on this pioneering study and are confident the outcome will benefit their drug development activities and provide a road-map for other Biotech companies to address the pressing need to reduce the time and costs of clinical development."
About Horizon Discovery
Horizon Discovery is a leading provider of research tools to support the development of personalized medicines. The Company's proprietary virally-mediated gene-engineering technology, GENESIS™, enables any endogenous gene in a human cell-line to be altered quickly, reliably and without introducing unwanted and confounding genotypes and/or phenotypes. Using GENESIS, Horizon Discovery has developed X-MAN™ (Gene-X; Mutant And Normal) cell models, which are the world's first source of genetically-defined and patient-relevant human cell lines.
The Company's broad panel of over 250 different X-MAN cell lines, which have been referred to as "patients-in-a-test-tube," accurately model the disease-causing mutations in cancer patients. The X-MAN cell lines are being used by academic and industry leaders to identify the effect of individual mutations on drug activity, patient responsiveness and resistance, and to successfully predict which patient sub-groups will respond to currently-available and future drug treatments. This supports the design of shorter, more focused clinical trials, making it possible to identify the 'right drugs' for the 'right patients' based upon the unique genetic mutations that define their disease. Founded in 2007 by Dr Chris Torrance and Professor Alberto Bardelli, and with headquarters in Cambridge, UK, the company builds on a long heritage in gene-engineering, cancer research and translational medicine, and draws on intellectual property and know-how from the University of Washington, the Johns Hopkins University, the University of Maryland, the University of Minnesota and the Department of Oncological Sciences at the University of Torino Medical School. Over 150 scientific papers relating to the use of X-MAN cell line pairs generated using GENESIS have been published, and the technology has won numerous awards including; Medical Futures Innovation Award for Cancer (2008), UK iaward of the Year (2009), and East of England Killer Technology (2010).
About Cylene Pharmaceuticals
Cylene Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a San Diego-based, private biotechnology company discovering and developing targeted small molecule drugs to treat life-threatening cancers. Cylene.s drug discovery platform, STAND (Selective TArgeting of Non-Oncogene Networks in Disease), has delivered a diverse portfolio of drug candidates that target the multiple pathways critical for the support and maintenance of cancer cells and that address unmet medical needs with substantial markets. Cylene.s novel agents include oral inhibitors of the cancer-linked serine/threonine protein kinases (CK2 and Pim), as well as oral agents that activate p53 via modulation of RNA Polymerase I activity in the upstream ribosome biogenesis pathway. Cylene.s innovative platform enables the rapid discovery of first-in-class agents that exert antitumor activity as a single agent and that can mechanistically enhance the effectiveness of current cancer therapies.