Abbott Laboratories Inc and Genentech Inc will collaborate to develop and eventually sell two Abbott cancer drugs now in early stages of human testing, the companies said on Tuesday.
The drugmakers did not disclose financial terms of the global deal, under which they will work together on all aspects of further development of the drugs discovered by Abbott, known as ABT-263 and ABT-869. They will co-promote the drugs in the United States, with Abbott marketing them in overseas markets. The compounds are now in Phase 1 trials for a variety of types of cancer.
Genentech is one of the world's best known oncology companies, with products such as colon cancer treatment Avastin and breast cancer drug Herceptin. Abbott, which is known for its treatments of arthritis and epilepsy and an array of medical diagnostics, currently sells no cancer drugs but aims to become a player in the highly lucrative field.
ABT-263 is designed to block a protein called Bcl-2 and thereby restore the body's natural process of ridding itself of damaged or aberrant cells. By overriding the so-called apoptosis process, cancer cells are able to have uncontrolled growth.
"Bcl-2 drugs could be huge, based on results we've seen in preclinical trials," Stephen Fesik, Abbott's vice president of cancer research discovery, said in an interview.
Fesik said continuing early-stage human trials of the Abbott drug have focused on small cell lung cancer, lymphoma and certain leukemias. "That's where we think this kind of drug will be most efficacious in our single-agent trials," he said. He forecast that ABT-263 will also work well in future cancer trials in combination with radiation and chemotherapy. Other companies, including Genta Inc, have tried without great success to develop cancer drugs that block Bcl-2 proteins.
Fesik said Genta's product reduces the amount of one type of Bcl-2 protein, whereas ABT-263 blocks three members of the Bcl-2 family. "Clearly, ABT-263 is the most potent Bcl-2 family inhibitor," he said.
Fesik said Abbott has been researching the field for more than a decade and thereby attracted the attention of Genentech, which is conducting early- and mid-stage trials of several compounds designed to restore apoptosis through other means.
The second drug in the Abbott/Genentech collaboration, ABT-869, works like Genentech's widely used Avastin. They both block receptors to a protein called vascular endothelial growth factor, or VEGF. Cancer cells use the protein to promote growth of blood vessels that deliver nutrients to tumours. The companies, which have never before collaborated on cancer drugs, said they will attempt to discover and develop other compounds that work the same way as ABT-263 and ABT-869, under the same terms.
Shares of Abbott were little changed in afternoon trade on the New York Stock Exchange. Genentech, which is majority owned by Roche Holding AG, slipped $1.18, or 1.6 percent, to $72.77, also on the NYSE.