The objective of the proposed research is to develop a therapeutic agent based on pretarget radioimmunotherapy that is superior to the current treatments of non-Hodgkin's B-cell lymphoma in terms of therapeutic efficacy and non-target organ toxicity. Fusion proteins of a single chain antibody and streptavidin (scFv/SA) will be developed that are reactive with CD2O and target in a lymphoma xenograft animal model. Two candidate scFv/SA constructs will be genetically modified (e.g., with changes to the linker region) for the purpose of improving the expression, purification, and/or biochemical characteristics. Additional fusion constructs will be generated from selection of a human Fab/phage display library on CD2O-positive peripheral blood lymphocytes. All scFv/SA candidates will be evaluated for meeting set criteria for E. coli expression level, purification yield, immunoreactivity and CD2O cell binding, biotin binding affinity, and targeting ability in a lymphoma xenograft animal model. These characteristics should be sufficient to warrant further Phase II efforts directed toward cGMP scale-up and formulation development for clinical trials.

Proposed Commercial Applications

The application of radioimmunotherapy toward the treatment of non- Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) has been constrained by dose limiting toxicity to the radiosensitive bone marrow. Antibody pretargeting provides a method to specifically deliver significantly greater doses to tumor sites without serious toxicities. A large number of patients with NHL are candidate's for this treatment. These patients represent a sizable market opportunity.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
Type
Small Business Innovation Research Grants (SBIR) - Phase II (R44)
Project #
5R44CA085130-03
Application #
6489365
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-SSS-1 (02))
Program Officer
Stone, Helen B
Project Start
2001-01-15
Project End
2002-12-31
Budget Start
2002-01-01
Budget End
2002-12-31
Support Year
3
Fiscal Year
2002
Total Cost
$358,187
Indirect Cost
Name
Neorx Corporation
Department
Type
DUNS #
City
Seattle
State
WA
Country
United States
Zip Code
98119
Forero, Andres; Weiden, Paul L; Vose, Julie M et al. (2004) Phase 1 trial of a novel anti-CD20 fusion protein in pretargeted radioimmunotherapy for B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Blood 104:227-36
Schultz, J; Lin, Y; Sanderson, J et al. (2000) A tetravalent single-chain antibody-streptavidin fusion protein for pretargeted lymphoma therapy. Cancer Res 60:6663-9