CuraGen Announces Initiation of Phase II Trial of CR011-vcMMAE in Patients with Advanced Bre...( BRANFORD Conn. June 25 /- CuraGen...),Health

BRANFORD, Conn., June 25 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- CuraGen Corporation (Nasdaq: CRGN), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on oncology, announced today the treatment of the first patient in its CR011-vcMMAE Phase II breast cancer study.

The Phase II trial is an open-label, multi-center study of CR011-vcMMAE administered intravenously once every three weeks to patients with locally-advanced or metastatic breast cancer who have received prior therapy. This study will enroll up to approximately 40 patients to confirm the maximum tolerated dose (MTD) in this population and to assess efficacy using a Simon 2-Stage design with an endpoint of progression-free rate at 12 weeks. The principal investigator is Dr. Linda Vahdat, Medical Director of the Breast Cancer Research Program and Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell.

"We believe that GPNMB is a promising target in breast cancer, and we look forward to better understanding how CR011-vcMMAE could be used in the treatment of this disease," commented Dr. Timothy Shannon, President and Chief Executive Officer of CuraGen Corporation. "We are confident in our ability to continue the rapid development of this program and look forward to providing updated CR011-vcMMAE results for the treatment of melanoma by the end of 2008 and the presentation of preliminary results from this newly initiated study in breast cancer during the first half of 2009."

CR011-vcMMAE targets a protein known as glycoprotein NMB (GPNMB), which is overexpressed in a variety of cancers including breast cancer, melanoma, and brain tumors. CR011-vcMMAE is an antibody-drug conjugate comprised of a fully-human monoclonal antibody against GPNMB linked
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