New Entities (NE Program)

Anti-invasive Peptide: AMEP

Scientific Papers

This research effort is conducted in co-operation with Professor Michel Perricaudet at the Gustave Roussy Institute and He Lu at the Saint Louis Hospital, Paris. The targeted indications are metastatic cancers, with a potential worldwide market of €6 billion. BioAlliance has decided to explore angiogenesis in order to identify new targets and new drugs. In this effort, BioAlliance has selected two different cellular levels to fight the invasiveness of angiogenesis, one with an extra cellular target (AMEP-cell to cell interaction) and the other with an intracellular target (utilizing Zyxin- phenotypic reversion to restore the cytoskeleton architecture)

The peptide AMEP targets ADAM and alpha V beta ligands involved in cell-to-cell dialog. This peptide was selected based on its targeting of the human Disintegrin region. This region is key for cell-to-cell interactions. The AMEP’s disintegrin ligands are ADAM 15 (a protein of the cell membrane expressed only in endothelial cancer cells) and Alpha V Beta 3, highly expressed in endothelial cells of new blood vessels but also in cancer cells like melanoma.

BioAlliance, together with its academic collaborators, has developed screening tests for the evaluation and the measurement of different properties, including cell adhesion, cell migration, cell proliferation, angiogenesis, and apoptosis. In these different evaluations AMEP has shown an original profile demonstrating all the above listed properties In addition, both AMEP ligands have anti-proliferative and anti-angiogenic complementary properties for acting on the invasive process.
In addition, the efficacy proof of concept was established in vivo in two different invasive models, breast cancer MDA MB 231 and melanoma B16 F10. These studies confirm the AMEP anti-invasiveness effect, with 53% tumor vessel inhibition, 70% tumor growth inhibition, and 75% metastasis inhibition.

The next development stages will focus on regulatory issues in order to start a Phase I clinical trial in melanoma patients, utilizing DNA electrotransfer in collaboration with the Gustave-Roussy Institute and a European clinicians group.

Scientific Papers