YM BioSci presents positive preclinical nimotuzumab data

Canada's YM BioSciences, an oncology company that identifies, develops and commercializes differentiated products for patients worldwide, says that a study presented by investigators from Kinki University School of Medicine and Kyoto University of Japan at the 11th meeting of The Japanese Association for Molecular Target Therapy of Cancer held on July 5-6, demonstrated the increased radiosensitivity of human non-small cell lung cancer cell lines in the presence of nimotuzumab both in vitro and in vivo. The study also confirms previous observations that nimotuzumab inhibits ligand-dependent EGF receptor downstream signaling. Daiichi Sankyo is the licensee for nimotuzumab in Japan.

In addition, YM BioSciences said that a paper on the structure of nimotuzumab, entitled Modeling the interaction between the anti-tumor antibody h-R3 and its target, the epidermal growth factor receptor was presented at the 11th annual meeting of the Structural Biology Network, held on June 15-18 in Tallberg, Sweden. This demonstrated that nimotuzumab specifically competes with cetuximab for binding to the EGF receptor. The authors noted that, "according to our models, nimotuzumab inhibits the EGFr signaling both by inhibiting the binding of EGF to domain III of EGFr and by a conformational change of EGFr that is necessary to shape the EGF binding site."