Marine-Sourced ADC Shows Anti-Cancer Activity

PharmaMar, a pharmaceutical company specializing in the discovery of marine-sourced antitumor drugs, has released the results of MI130004, a novel antibody drug conjucate (ADC) combining trastuzumab with PM050489, a molecule of marine origin (1).

The antitumor activity was analyzed in breast, ovarian, and gastric cancer tumor cell lines that express different levels of HER2 in both in vitro and in vivo tests, according to the company.

The study, published by Molecular Cancer Therapeutics on Feb. 13, 2018 (2), shows that this new molecule provokes a longer-lasting response and inhibits significantly tumor growth in tumors that express HER2, providing a higher median progression-free survival time in comparison with trastuzumab.

According to the study, MI130004 showed very high in vitro potency and good selectivity for tumor cells that overexpressed HER2. At the cellular level, MI130004 impaired tubulin polymerization, causing disorganization and disintegration of the microtubule network, which led to mitotic failure, mirroring the effect of its payload.

These results suggest that MI130004 has significant anticancer activity and confirm the potential of marine compounds for the design of new ADCs.

Source: PharmaMar