Rainforests could hold cancer cure
Published: March 9, 2006
North Queensland rainforest plants could hold the key to developing drugs to treat lung, breast and prostate cancer.
The project is part of a multi-million dollar deal with a listed UK-based company.
Cancer drug developer Antisoma Plc has signed an agreement with Cairns-based privately owned drug discovery company EcoBiotics Ltd, to evaluate anti-cancer chemical compounds discovered in tropical north Queensland rainforests.
Under the agreement, Antisoma will choose up to three of EcoBiotics’ early stage compounds to evaluate over the next year.
If results were promising, AntiSoma could go on to develop two of those compounds.
EcoBiotics chief executive, Dr Victoria Gordon, said it was hoped they could one day lead to effective treatment for some of the most common and deadly cancers.
“As far as the compounds that Antisoma will be taking up, they are basically focussing on solid tumours such as breast, lung and prostate cancer,” Dr Gordon said.
She said the terms of the deal remained commercial-in-confidence.
“We’ve agreed upon sign-on fees and milestone payments that will be paid during the development of the compounds and then when the product is marketed; we’ll also get a percentage of sales,” Dr Gordon said.
“It’s a multi-million dollar deal.”
The exact plants under research and development also remained a commercial secret but Dr Gordon said only one or two kilograms were taken from forests at a time.
Compounds could be synthesised, so there was no need for large-scale harvesting.
A number of compounds taken from rainforest plants have already shown anti-cancer activity in early preclinical assessments.
Antisoma’s chief executive officer, Glyn Edwards, said the success of Antisoma’s search and development program was based on the company’s ability to find promising anti-cancer drugs to develop.
“Evaluation deals like the one we’ve signed with EcoBiotics add to the diversity of potential inputs to our pipeline, and nicely complement our ongoing activity in licensing single preclinical and early clinical stage drugs,” Mr Edwards said.
If you enjoyed this good news Subscribe to Good News Blog
Share this
To share this simply copy and paste one of the below URL's: