Preclinical Progress Reported at American Association of Cancer Research Conference.

MELBOURNE, Australia, and MENLO PARK, Calif., April 4 /PRNewswire- FirstCall/ -- ChemGenex Pharmaceuticals Limited announced today the presentation of three posters describing aspects of its pre-clinical research at the American Association of Cancer Research 97th Annual Meeting in Washington DC.

Posters describing preclinical research findings were presented on Ceflatonin(R), Quinamed(R) and ChemGenex's earlier-stage anti-cancer compound CXS299 by research teams from ChemGenex and leading academic institutions.

 
  Highlights of the posters include: 
  1.  The discovery that Ceflatonin, which is currently in phase 2 clinical 
      trials for use in various leukemia indications, can suppress the 
      development of blood vessels, a process known as angiogenesis. The 
      development of angiogenic inhibitors has been an important focus in 
      the search for novel cancer therapeutics. The poster examines the 
      efficacy of Ceflatonin when used alone or in combination with some 
      topoisomerase inhibitors, and reports some significant anticancer 
      responses that may be of value in controlling solid tumor growth. 
      (Abstract 564). 
  2.  Observations that Quinamed, which is currently in Phase 2 clinical 
      trials for use in various solid tumors, has synergistic effects when 
      used with some anti-leukemic agents. Using a cell culture model of 
      acute myeloid leukemia (AML), it was shown that Quinamed combined with 
      mitoxantrone resulted in more than additive anticancer responses. 
      This result suggests possible future combination therapies for a range 
      of leukemias. (Abstract 2140). 
  3.  The discovery by a team at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, 
      Texas that CXS299 causes cell death when used to treat breast and 
      prostate cancer cell lines which are resistant to cisplatin, a widely 
      used anti-cancer agent. CXS299 maintains the ability to activate the 
      tumor suppressor protein p53 in resistant cells, an ability that 
      existing therapeutics lack. This discovery confirms that CXS299 has 
      significant potential as a therapeutic agent for patients who have 
      inherent resistance, or who develop resistance to cisplatin. (Abstract 
      5420). 
 
  About ChemGenex Pharmaceuticals Limited (http://www.chemgenex.com/ ) 
 

ChemGenex Pharmaceuticals is a pharmaceutical development company dedicated to improving the lives of patients by developing therapeutics in the areas of oncology, diabetes, obesity, and depression. ChemGenex harnesses the power of genomics for target discovery and ...