Novartis Gets Immune-Cell Cancer Therapy in UPenn Pact | Cancer ...

Novartis AG (NOVN) will fund a $20 million
research center at the University of Pennsylvania in a deal in
which the drugmaker gains technology that uses manipulated
immune-system cells to fight cancer.

Under the pact, the Philadelphia school will receive money
up front, research funds and payments for reaching clinical,
regulatory, and commercial milestones, said Eric Althoff, a
spokeswoman for Basel, Switzerland-based Novartis, by telephone.
He wouldn?t disclose further financial details.

The university?s scientists, led by Carl June, used genetic
engineering to manipulate white blood cells extracted from three
leukemia patients. They then reinjected them in an experiment
reported in August 2011 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The tweaked T-cells destroyed the disease, according to the
report, and June said the patients remain in remission.

?I never thought this would happen, that the pharma
industry would get into ultra-personalized therapy,? June said
in a telephone interview. ?We had lots of venture capital
interest, but it?s hard to be a new company and it takes time to
get set up. The fastest route to widespread availability is to
use an existing company.?

Novartis was one of three companies to negotiate with the
university, according to June, who declined to name the other
two. Novartis was selected in part because of its experience
with Gleevac, a drug used to treat chronic myeloid leukemia.

The therapy pioneered by June reprogrammed the immune
system?s T-cells to first target the leukemia, and then divide
in its presence. The method also stimulates so-called memory T-
cells, which may help protect patients against the cancer?s
return, the studies said.

The treatment may point researchers to a new way to cure
chronic lymphocytic leukemia, a malignancy diagnosed in about
15,000 people a year, according to the National Cancer Institute.

The only method used now for achieving remission in the
disease is a bone marrow transplant, which carries a 20 percent
death risk and offers a cure half the time, June, a professor of
pathology and laboratory medicine at the school?s Abramson
Cancer Center, said last year.

June?s group is now treating 1 patient a week, he said. The
Novartis collaboration will help more people get treatment, said
June, who is a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at
the University?s Abramson Cancer Center.

In addition to further trials in leukemia, the UPenn group
has also engineered trials for lymphoma, mesothelioma, myeloma,
and neuroblastoma.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Elizabeth Lopatto in New York at
elopatto@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Reg Gale at
rgale5@bloomberg.net

Article source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-06/novartis-gets-immune-cell-cancer-therapy-in-upenn-pact.html

Source: http://cancerkick.com/2012/08/06/novartis-gets-immune-cell-cancer-therapy-in-upenn-pact-2/

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