Telix Pharmaceuticals and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Announce Renal Cancer Collaboration
MELBOURNE (Australia) and NEW YORK (USA) – 14 December 2017. Telix Pharmaceuticals Limited has today announced a collaboration with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Telix has today announced a collaboration with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK)
Telix is developing 89Zr-girentuximab (TLX-250) for the purpose of imaging clear cell renal cell cancer (ccRCC) with Positron Emission Tomography (PET). Under the collaboration, MSK will use TLX-250 as a tool to better manage the therapeutic algorithm for patients with metastatic ccRCC by using imaging to assess early treatment response to standard care drugs (particularly sunitinib and pazopanib). The clinical objective is to use imaging as a precision medicine tool to rapidly determine an optimal therapeutic strategy for the patient.
Telix Co-Founder and CEO Dr. Christian Behrenbruch stated, “We believe treatment-response imaging with TLX-250 can fundamentally change the way we cycle patients through tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI), mTOR inhibitors and VEGF-targeting drugs to more recently available options such as nivolumab. In doing so, it is hoped that we can do a better job of maximizing therapeutic response for patients with advanced disease.”
Dr. Steven M. Larson, Director of the Center for Radioimmunotherapy and Theranostics (CRITT) of the Ludwig Center for Cancer Immunotherapy (LCCI) at MSK noted “The 124I-cG240 antibody, which was the fore-runner of the novel TLX-250 radio-antibody product, was tested in clinical trials which began more than a decade ago here at MSK, in order to meet the unmet need for better diagnosis and therapy planning for renal cancer. The development of 89Zr-girentuximab (TLX-250), will bring this program full circle, toward a more nearly optimal PET-based imaging agent”.
Dr. Neeta Pandit-Taskar, MSK nuclear medicine physician and Clinical Director, CRITT, added, “We are really excited to be working with Telix on this critically important program. Every day, we strive to find the best solution for how imaging can be used to measure patient response to therapy, since early assessment of treatment response is vitally important for our patients with metastatic kidney cancer.”
As part of the collaboration, Telix will fund MSK’s implementation of a new radiochemistry process and will amend the existing study protocol for repeat dosing of 124I-girentuximab to take advantage of the superior sensitivity and specificity of using 89Zr (zirconium) chemistry. It is hoped that the improved 89Zr-radiochemistry will better detect changes in smaller lesions that are often challenging to image with iodine chemistry. Under the terms of the agreement, Telix will provide clinical-grade material to MSK and modest financial support for the radiochemistry upgrade. The agreement includes clinical data sharing.
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