Positive results reported for ABI-007.

2003 JUN 19 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- American Pharmaceutical Partners, Inc., (APPX) said that results of two phase II studies were to be presented at the 2003 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting held in Chicago.

The two presentations highlighted safety and efficacy results of clinical studies of ABI-007, a protein-based nanoparticle, cremophor-free paclitaxel, in head and neck tumors and in patients with late stage metastatic breast cancer in which previous Taxol or Taxotere therapy has failed. As previously announced, safety and efficacy data from the completed phase III randomized study directly comparing Taxol at 175 mg/m2 (infused over 3 hours with steroid pretreatment) to ABI-007 at 260 mg/m2 (infused over 30 minutes without any pretreatment) in patients with metastatic breast cancer will be unblinded some time after the ASCO meeting.

These data demonstrating antitumor activity of a novel protein-based nanoparticle paclitaxel, ABI-007, in breast cancer patients who have progressed despite Taxol or Taxotere therapy.

"We are pleased to note positive evidence of activity of our novel protein-based nanoparticle paclitaxel in this highly selected patient population who have progressed on existing taxane therapies currently available to breast cancer patients," said Michael Hawkins, MD, chief medical officer of American BioScience, Inc., ...