WASHINGTON -- A promising new cancer drug that generated global headlines last year when it cured cancer in laboratory mice was just too hard to develop, drugmaker Bristol-Myers Squibb said Wednesday.
The pharmaceutical giant said it would stop working jointly with EntreMed to develop the drug -- angiostatin -- and would cut loose the tiny biotechnology company to develop it on its own.
"They have a more vested interest in seeing this go forward," said Robert Kramer, vice president for cancer-drug discovery at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY). "It makes sense to us to let them put their energies behind this and let us put our energy behind our large repertoire of other items."
EntreMed (ENMD) said it was going ahead with the drug and with two other drugs in the same class. And both companies said they still had strong faith in the class of drugs, known as angiogenesis inhibitors.
"We are now allowed to pick up the ball," said Dr. John Holaday, president and chief executive officer of EntreMed. "They were in the driver's seat, and we were riding shotgun. Now they've handed over the reins, and they are riding shotgun."
Angiostatin generated headlines worldwide last year as the great new hope against cancer after The New York Times featured the drug in a front-page article.
Developed by Dr. Judah Folkman of Children's Hospital in Boston, it is one of a new class of drugs that starve out tumors by stopping them from growing a blood supply. Angiostatin and a sister drug, endostatin, worked very well in mice, curing many of laboratory-induced cancer.
Rockville, Maryland-based EntreMed had been in agreement with Bristol-Myers since 1995 to develop the two drugs, and the company's stock shot up on the Times report. But such drugs require time and painstaking effort to develop, and many never make it to human, or clinical, trials.
Kramer said in the end, the drug was too tricky to produce.
"It's not so much ability to make it. We can make buckets full of protein." But the drug, based on a naturally produced human protein, is not consistent enough to test in people, he said.
Bristol-Myers was using genetically engineered mammal cells grown in culture to produce the protein. EntreMed was taking a different route, using genetically engineered yeast to grow it. Both are time-honored methods used in drug production.
Kramer said the yeast method does not meet Bristol-Myers' standards. Holaday said he thinks it works fine, adding that EntreMed soon will step up production at two facilities, including one operated by Covance (CVD) in North Carolina.
Holaday said he plans to start human clinical trials on both angiostatin and endostatin this year.
The full terms of the rewritten agreement between the companies were not revealed, but Holaday said Bristol-Myers has the option to co-develop angiostatin if EntreMed can produce it more reliably.
"They will be able to come back in," he said. "They are still partners in development. There are increased risks for us, and as a consequence, we will have increased royalties with the success."
Many other companies also are working on angiogenesis inhibitors.
Copyright© 1999 Reuters Limited.
