20 April 2018 - - Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany-based cancer therapeutics developer amcure has presented pre-clinical results of its lead drug candidate, AMC303, in a poster entitled 'The allosteric inhibitor of CD44v6 AMC303 blocks c-MET, Ron and VEGFR-2 dependent signaling and cellular processes' at the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting 2018, the company said.
The data showed the strong anti-tumor and anti-metastatic effects in various epithelial tumor cells by the binding of AMC303 to the extracellular domain of CD44v6. The isoform CD44v6 of the CD44 family of transmembrane glycoproteins has been shown to play a major role in tumor growth and metastasis.
This study has shown that blocking CD44v6, an essential co-receptor for the receptor tyrosine kinases VEGFR-2, c-MET, and RON, interferes with several key steps in tumor progression and metastasis including epithelial-mesenchymal-transition (EMT), cell migration, and invasion.
AMC303, amcure's lead compound, is being developed as a potential treatment for patients with advanced and metastatic epithelial tumors, e.g. pancreatic cancer, head and neck cancer, gastric cancer, colorectal cancer, breast cancer, and lung cancer. It has demonstrated strong effects in various in vitro and in vivo assays.
amcure GmbH, a spin-off from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology established in 2012, develops peptide-based compounds for the treatment of highly metastatic forms of cancer.
amcure's most advanced development candidate, AMC303, has entered clinical development and has demonstrated in in vivo animal proof-of-concept studies a high efficacy against different types of epithelial cancers. amcure is supported by a grant from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.