Antisoma to acquire US cancer company Aptamera
Cancer drug development company Antisoma has entered into an agreement to acquire the private US company Aptamera in a share-based transaction valuing Aptamera at approximately £11.5m ($21.4m).
Aptamera's principal asset is AGRO100, a novel aptamer drug that has shown promising anti-cancer effects and a marked lack of side effects in a phase I trial of patients with various cancers. Antisoma will now assess which cancers to focus on in the next phase of development. AGRO100 has US orphan drug status in pancreatic cancer. Renal cancer and acute myeloid leukaemia are also potential indications. Antisoma will develop AGRO100 independently, outside its alliance with Roche.
AGRO100 targets nucleolin, a protein found on the surface of many types of cancer cell. The University of Louisville, Kentucky, where AGRO100 was latterly developed, is researching further drugs based on targeting nucleolin. Through its acquisition of Aptamera, Antisoma will obtain an option to license these drugs from the university.
Commenting on the transaction, Glyn Edwards, ceo of Antisoma, said: 'The acquisition of Aptamera will expand our clinical portfolio to four drugs, each based on very different technology, and make us a leader in the exciting new area of anti-cancer aptamers. The acquisition will crystallise our dual development and commercialisation strategy, whereby we gain returns from large market products through our alliance with Roche while retaining full rights to promising niche products such as Aptamera's AGRO100.'
Dr Donald Miller, co-founder of Aptamera and director of the James Graham Brown Cancer Center in Louisville, Kentucky, added: AGRO100 is a very exciting new approach to cancer therapy and I am delighted that it will benefit from Antisoma's global experience in oncology drug development.'
Aptamers
Aptamers, derived from the latin aptus, meaning, 'to fit', are specific RNA or DNA oligonucleotides or proteins which can adopt a vast number of three dimensional shapes. Due to this property, aptamers can be produced to bind tightly to a specific molecular target. Because an extraordinary diversity of molecular shapes exist within the universe of all possible nucleotide sequences, aptamers may be obtained for a wide array of molecular targets, including most proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, nucleotides, other small molecules or complex structures such as viruses.