Peregrine Pharmaceuticals Doses First Patient in Cotara(R) Phase II Brain Cancer Tria...(tion inlocal therapy exposure than conve...),Health

The new Cotara study is being conducted according to internationally accepted ICH GCP guidelines.

About Cotara(R)

Cotara is an experimental new treatment for brain cancer that links a radioactive substance designed for medical uses--a radioactive isotope--to a targeted monoclonal antibody. This monoclonal antibody is designed to bind to a type of DNA that is exposed only on dead and dying cells. Solid tumors, including brain tumors, have a significant number of dead and dying cells at their center and Cotara's targeting mechanism enables it to home in on these dying tumor cells, delivering its radioactive "payload" directly to the center of the tumor mass. Cotara thus destroys the tumor "from the inside out," with minimal radiation exposure to healthy tissue. Cotara is delivered through a special method called convection-enhanced delivery (CED), which directs Cotara to the tumor by using a catheter to bypass the blood brain barrier and target the specific tumor site in the brain.

In a previous study, a subset of patients with recurrent glioblastoma treated with Cotara achieved a median survival of 38 weeks, a 58% increase over the median survival time of 24 weeks for patients treated with standard of care therapy. In this study, 25% of 28 recurrent patients survived for more than a year post-treatment and 10% of patients survived for more than three years. These data are considered a promising development in this serious and deadly disease, which kills half of its victims within 14 months of diagnosis. Peregrine believes that combined positive data from this new study in India and ongoing U.S. glioblastoma trials would provide a foundation for advancing Cotara into Phase lll trials. In addition to the trial now underway
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SOURCE Peregrine Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Copyright©2007 PR Newswire.

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