Eden Biodesign chosen to develop therapeutic candidates for cancer treatment
UK biophramaceutical development and manufacturing company Eden Biodesign has signed agreements with Cancer Research UK (CR-UK), the UK's leading charity dedicated to cancer research, to provide consultancy, process development and manufacturing services for two of CR-UK's leading gene therapy products: Ad-hTR-NTR for advanced intra-abdominal cancer and Ad.CP62 for head and neck cancer.
UK biophramaceutical development and manufacturing company Eden Biodesign has signed agreements with Cancer Research UK (CR-UK), the UK's leading charity dedicated to cancer research, to provide consultancy, process development and manufacturing services for two of CR-UK's leading gene therapy products: Ad-hTR-NTR for advanced intra-abdominal cancer and Ad.CP62 for head and neck cancer.
Ad-hTR-NTR is a telomerase targeted adenoviral suicide gene therapy vector, which is active in telomerase expressing cancer cells. Activation of the hTR promoter in cancer cells drives bacterial nitroreductase expression and converts the inactive prodrug CB1954 into its active form leading to cell death.
Ad.CPG2 is a conditionally replication-competent oncolytic adenovirus that expresses carboxypeptidase G2 (Ad.CPG2). Activation of the prodrug (ZD2767P) by CPG2 releases a potent alkylating mustard preventing tumour proliferation by DNA cross-linking.
Under the terms of the agreements, Eden Biodesign will provide strategic advice to produce an effective development plan that will optimise the preclinical process with a view to expediting clinical manufacture and supply. Eden Biodesign will also develop the manufacturing process and associated analytical testing for these novel therapies.
Depending on achieving preclinical development milestones, Eden Biodesign will provide cGMP production of Ad-hTR-NTR and Ad.CPG2 for the Phase I clinical trials. The complete project could take up to 18 months and reach £1.5m in value.
"This partnership with Eden Biodesign will allow us to progress the development of promising cancer treatments for use in clinical trials," said Dr Shamim Kazmi-Stokes, senior project manager at Cancer Research UK. "We hope that collaborations like these will enhance our ability to develop anti-tumour therapeutics for testing in the clinical setting."
The development work will take place primarily at the UK National Biomanufacturing Centre, which is run by Eden Biodesign.