Data on BioAlliance Pharma's oral chemotherapy nanoparticle formulation presented at the AAPS meeting

BioAlliance Pharma SA (Euronext Paris: BIO), a company dedicated to the treatment and supportive care of cancer and AIDS patients, has presented its results on new oral chemotherapy nanoparticle formulation at the AAPS (American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists) Annual Meeting in Los Angeles (November 8 to 12, 2009).

Oral chemotherapy is a great challenge and its success is expected to make a major breakthrough in cancer chemotherapy in the following years.

BioAlliance Pharma is developing an innovative proprietary nanoparticle technology offering new therapeutic solutions for oral administration in oncology. Using Sustained Release Nanoparticles (SRN) formulation, oral chemotherapy can maintain optimum drug plasma concentrations, providing prolonged exposure to cancer cells, then improving the efficacy and tolerance.

The data presented at the AAPS Meeting showed that the new oral formulation of irinotecan (IRN-SRN) entrapped into nanoparticles, allowing an oral delivery of IRN, significantly prolonged plasmatic half lives of IRN and SN-38, its active metabolite, compared to those observed after the intravenous administration of IRN, then increasing exposure to the active drug.

The IRN-SRN formulation tested in vivo in models of colorectal tumours was demonstrated to have similar efficacy on tumour growth inhibition and to be better tolerated than IRN administered IV.

“This oral nanoparticle innovation opens new ways to chemotherapy agents in cancer treatments,” commented Dominique Costantini, President and CEO, BioAlliance Pharma.