Micromet reports on breast cancer trial

Germany's Micromet, a biopharmaceutical company developing novel antibodies for the treatment of cancer, inflammation and autoimmune diseases, presented interim data from a study investigating its anti-epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM) antibody, MT201 (adecatumumab), in combination with docetaxel at the meeting of the European Society of Medical Oncology in Stockholm, Sweden.

The ongoing Phase Ib clinical trial investigated the safety and tolerability of increasing doses of adecatumumab in combination with docetaxel in relapsed metastatic breast cancer patients who had a median of three prior chemotherapy regimens. The overall response rate has been reported to be 43% in patients with high expression of EpCAM (three of seven patients), whereas no responses were detected in patients with low EpCAM expression (out of eight patients).

Adecatumumab is an antibody that targets EpCAM, a tumor antigen known to be associated with poor prognosis for many solid cancers. In addition to the continued clinical development in breast cancer, Micromet is also setting up a randomized Phase II clinical trial in patients suffering from colorectal cancer after complete resection of first liver metastases.