Patrys (ASX:PAB), a therapeutic antibody development company, has announced further pre-clinical data for its drug candidate PATDX1-NP.
The candidate links PAT-DX1, Patrys’ humanised version of the 3E10 anti-DNA antibody, to nanoparticles (NPs) that can be loaded with chemotherapeutic drugs.
According to the company, as part of the tumour localisation study recently completed at Yale University, Drs James Hansen and Jiangbing Zhou made the discovery that PAT-DX1-NPs appeared not only to localise to primary tumours, but also to axillary lymph node metastases.
Axillary lymph nodes are the most common sites to which breast cancer initially metastasises.
"In the Yale study, mice with breast cancer tumors were treated with free NPs or PAT-DX1-NPs, with both sets of nanocarriers loaded with a staining reagent to allow them to be directly tracked in the mice by an imaging system," said the company in a statement.
"The PAT-DX1-NPs showed improved targeting of the primary tumors, which is consistent with previous studies with murine 3E10 and PAT-DX1 in breast and glioblastoma tumor models.
"Remarkably, the PAT-DX1-NPs also appeared to target nearby axillary lymph node metastases. As PAT-DX1 targets the cloud of extracellular DNA released by dying cancer cells it is not surprising that PAT-DX1-NPs have a potential to target not only primary tumors but cancerous cells elsewhere in the body including lymph nodes and distant metastases, but this is the first direct evidence of this effect in an animal study."
“If PAT-DX1-NP localises to metastases as well as primary tumors the implications are significant,” said Dr James Campbell, CEO and managing director of Patrys.
“That would mean that an eventual therapeutic could have broad utility, treating both primary and secondary tumors – potentially before the latter had even been identified. There is now support for diagnostic imaging applications for the PAT-DX1 technology, which we have foreseen in our patent strategy and intellectual property filings.
“This discovery is consistent with Patrys’ understanding of the behaviour of PAT-DX1, and offers further development potential for this asset. Patrys is focussed on progressing the broader PAT-DX1 program towards the clinic, and any diagnostic/imaging programs will only be progressed through alliances in the coming year.”