Cancer Franchise

Background

Arana has a number of anti-cancer compounds in its development programme. Arana believes that the driver for growth in the treatment of cancer will come from antibody products.

ART010 - in pre-clinical development for cancer-related bone loss

ART010 is aimed at treating one of the major debilitating side-effects of cancer known as cancer-related bone loss.

Seventy percent of patients with advanced breast or prostate cancer develop secondary cancers in the bone, resulting in approximately 300,000 new cases each year in the U.S. alone. The annual cost of adjunct treatment to counter the effects of bone erosion, fragility and pain is estimated to be in excess of US$1.3 billion.

In humans, a protein called osteoprotegerin (OPG) protects against the loss of bone mass associated with osteoporosis and bone cancer.

ART010 is an engineered version of OPG, produced by the application of Arana’s propriety technology EvoGene™, designed to improve its therapeutic potential. ART010 is being developed to inhibit the growth of cancers in bone and reduce the suffering of patients where tumours have spread to bone.

Arana expects to complete pre-clinical work and to commence clinical trials in the first quarter of 2010. Arana has filed patent applications for ART010, which, subject to grant, will provide patent protection for the product until 2025.

The target of ART010 - RANKL - has recently been clinically validated as a target by the success in a pivotal Phase III clinical trial of denosumab, currently in development by Amgen. The denosumab trial provided the first clinical validation that inhibition of RANKL reduces fracture risk. Reduction of fracture risk is the ultimate aim of bone loss therapies.

ART104 – in co-development with Kyowa Hakko Kirin (KHK)

ART104 is an antibody in development for the treatment of colorectal cancer. It has been shown to improve the effects of standard chemotherapy in a mouse model of colorectal cancer and Arana expects that it may also be effective for the treatment of other solid tumours. Arana is co-developing the antibody with the major Japanese biotechnology company KHK.

ART104 continues to progress in its development with KHK’s technology now being applied to further improve the cancer killing potential of the antibody. The joint development of ART104 with KHK continues to make good progress with the agreed timelines and milestones being met by both parties.

ART150 – in pre-clinical development

ART150 is an antibody under development for the treatment of lung cancer and melanoma, markets with a potential value of between US$1.0 billion – US$2.0 billion.

Arana is now in the late stages of optimising a humanised antibody using our technologies. We continue to enhance the antibody, an earlier version of which has performed well in models for melanoma and lung cancer – showing strong inhibition of tumour growth.

Arana expects to select a validated and finalised candidate antibody to take forward into the cell line construction phase of GMP manufacture in the first quarter of 2009.

Earlier stage anti-cancer compounds

Arana has a further three anti-cancer compounds in the discovery stage of its product pipeline: ART140 for leukaemia, ART101 for colorectal cancer and ART160 for solid tumours.