U.S. PTO awards Endocyte patent for vitamin receptor binding anti-cancer agents

Officials at Endocyte Inc., a cancer drug discovery and development company, announced Tuesday (Oct. 27, 2009) that the company has been awarded a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office covering vitamin receptor binding anti-cancer agents.

The patent, entitled "Vitamin Receptor Binding Drug Delivery Conjugates" (U.S. Patent No. 7,601,332), covers novel conjugation linkages and anti-cancer agents, including Endocyte's EC145, which is currently in development as a potential treatment for ovarian and non-small cell lung cancers.

The patent represents years of research into Endocyte's groundbreaking technology that links potent anti-cancer agents to receptor binding moieties on the surfaces of cells. The technology utilizes a proprietary "linker" technology that connects the anti-cancer agent to the appropriate receptor binding moiety to form a conjugate. The moiety enables the conjugate to remain stable while in circulation and be delivered selectively into cancer cells. The novel "linker" causes the anti-cancer agent to be released in its intact and fully active form within the cells. This patented combination of targeting moiety-linker-drug conjugates describe a number of Endocyte conjugates, including its lead drug candidate, EC145, which uses the vitamin folate as the targeting moiety and which is currently in Phase 2 clinical trials.

"This technology platform positions Endocyte to continue to create a new generation of powerful drugs in the years ahead that can target cancer and other diseased cells with high precision to significantly improve both safety and efficacy profiles of existing and new therapeutics," said Christopher Leamon, Ph.D., Endocyte's vice president of research. "The Phase II data from our most advanced therapeutic, EC145, has been promising and we have a strong pipeline of new compounds in preclinical and clinical development."

Endocyte's growing technology portfolio also includes patented targeted imaging agents, including EC20 which is currently in clinical-stage development as a molecular diagnostic tool to identify patients with folate receptor positive cancer. As a result, EC20 may be able to help doctors identify those patients most likely to respond to treatment with agents like EC145, which is designed to target folate receptors on cancer cells.

"Our progress with EC145 and EC20 indicate that the Endocyte receptor-targeting technology platform could have a profound positive impact on disease diagnosis and targeted treatment in the years ahead," said Ron Ellis, president and CEO of Endocyte.

SOURCE Endocyte