Alliance to Develop Anticancer Drug

An agreement to co-develop an anticancer drug has been announced by NeoTherapeutics, Inc. (Irvine, CA, USA) and GPC Biotech AG (Martinsried, Germany). The drug to be developed, satraplatin, is the lead anticancer drug of NeoTherapeutics. GPC Biotech will fully fund development and commercialization expenses, and NeoTherapeutics will receive license fees, milestone payments, and royalties on sales.

Saraplatin is an orally administered platinum derivative. A large phase 2 program has shown efficacy in the treatment of hormone-resistant prostate cancer as well as several other tumor types. The two companies expect to begin phase 3 clinical development in 2003. First- and second-generation platinum agents, cisplatin and carboplatin, are widely used in treating cancer, but neither is approved to treat prostate cancer.

"Data from the approximately 500 patients treated so far strongly suggest that satraplatin has the potential to become an important anticancer drug, particularly in the treatment of hormone-resistant prostate cancer,” said Bernd R. Seizinger, M.D., Ph.D., president and CEO of GPC Biotech. "Another important feature of satraplatin is the fact that it can be orally administered. There is currently no orally administered platinum compound on the market.”




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