S’PORE, ITALY TO DEVELOP DRUG, ANTIBODIES FOR CANCER, BONE LOSS

By Zakaria Abdul Wahab

SINGAPORE, April 9 (Bernama) -- Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology
and Research (A*STAR) is collaborating with Italy’s Siena Biotech S.p.A. to
develop new drugs and targeted antibodies which will potentially help millions
of cancer and bone loss patients across the world.

Two of its research units, the Experimental Therapeutics Centre (ETC) and
Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN), will respectively develop the drugs and
antibodies, according to the agency Thursday.

In a statement, A*STAR said ETC and Siena Biotech would be developing
molecular inhibitors of a major signalling pathway in oncology to target
difficult-to-treat forms of cancer such as gastric cancer, leukaemia and brain
tumours.

During this collaboration, ETC and some 30 scientists from Siena Biotech
would be conducting tests on synthetic compounds to characterise and optimise
their inhibitor function in cancer cells, and a drug was expected to enter
clinical trials next year, the agency said.

ETC and Siena Biotech’s molecular inhibitors might improve the prognosis for
a very significant number of cancer patients, given that gastric cancer was the
fourth most common cancer in the world and the second leading cause of cancer
deaths.

Gastric cancer is also one of the most common in Singapore (fifth highest
in
men and seventh highest in women, according to the Singapore Cancer Registry),
with over 600 cases diagnosed annually.

Meanwhile, SIgN and Siena Biotech are jointly developing a novel monoclonal
antibody applicable to bone diseases such as osteoporosis.

Under the agreement, Siena Biotech would characterise, develop and test the
effectiveness of the monoclonal antibodies while SIgN would isolate the
disease-specific human monoclonal antibody from a pool of tens of billions of
polyclonal antibodies, A*STAR said.

It said the monoclonal antibody was intended to block a specific
extracellular component in the molecular pathway that leads to bone loss, and
thus stopped the disease progression.

If successful, A*STAR said it would reduce the risk of bone fractures and
the associated healthcare costs for those suffering from various forms of bone
frailty.

-- BERNAMA




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