Phase I/II Results With BioTransplant's BTI-322

Follow-up data on US company BioTransplant Inc's lead compound, BTI-322, in two Phase I/II clinical trials were presented at the XVI International Conference of the Transplantation Society, held in Barcelona, Spain, end-August. The trials were a six-month follow-up to evaluate BTI-322 in the prevention of organ transplant rejection in renal transplant patients, including immunological monitoring, and a 12-month follow-up evaluation of the compound for treating kidney transplant rejection.

BTI-322 is a novel, proprietary monoclonal antibody targeted to CD2, an important therapeutic target on the surface of T cells, which mediate the rejection response. A Phase I/II study for the treatment of acute transplant rejection is currently also underway at the Massachusetts General Hospital, USA. BioTransplant is developing the compound in collaboration with MedImmune Inc, and notes that BTI-322 is also a critical component of its AlloMune and XenoMune Systems for creating transplant tolerance in human-to-human transplantation and cross-species transplantation.

Fewer Rejection Incidents In the first study, presented in Barcelona by Jean-Paul Squifflet of the Clinique Saint Luc, University of Louvain, Belgium, a group of 20 patients had received a 10-day course of 5mg/day of BTI-322 in addition to the conventional triple drug regimen. At six months, the BTI-322-treated group had significantly fewer acute rejection incidents than the controls.