Critical Outcome Technologies Inc has been selected by the Consulate General of Canada and BIOTECanada to attend a life sciences partnering mission in Boston, MA, USA. This initiative is being held in conjunction with the BioPharm America conference taking place September 15-17, 2010.
COTI is one of 10 Canadian companies that will participate in this partnering mission and has arranged a number of one-on-one meetings with pharmaceutical, biotechnology and investment organizations in the Boston area.
COTI will be represented by Dr Wayne Danter, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), and Mr Michael Barr, Vice President of Business Development and Marketing. As part of the partnering mission they will attend an invitation only dinner along with executives from several pharmaceutical companies.
The objective of these meetings is to present detailed scientific information on COTI-2 and to discuss licensing opportunities, as COTI-2 continues its development towards a Phase 1 clinical trial in 2011.
Some of the recent and more important COTI-2 scientific developments being presented include:
* Evidence from protein expression and silencing RNA experiments confirming mechanism of action.
* Completion of a final intravenous formulation.
* Completion of a sensitive detection method in animal plasma.
* Progress in the development of a final oral formulation with improved bioavailability.
COTI-2 is a novel small molecule that acts by inhibition of Akt/PKB (Protein kinase B) phosphorylation that leads to caspase-9 activation in cancer cells resulting in apoptosis or programmed cell death. It has demonstrated greater selectivity, improved safety profile and pharmacokinetics in comparison to other Akt inhibitors. COTI- 2 is easily synthesized and has good in vitro and in vivo efficacy against multiple cancers including small cell lung, non-small cell lung, colon, brain, ovarian, endometrial, triple negative breast and pancreatic.
COTI-2 test results show it to be highly effective as a single agent therapy and as a combination therapy in a number of animal models of human cancers. COTI-2 differs from other cancer treatments in that other treatments involve the killing of healthy growing and dividing cells in the body resulting in significant toxic side effects while COTI-2 appears to target and destroy cancer cells only and has demonstrated low toxicity in normal human cells compared to human cancer cells.
The combined scientific evidence indicates that COTI-2 is an ideal agent for combination therapy with current standard agents for a number of cancers. COTI is currently evaluating partners to share in the risk/reward of development via a licensing agreement for COTI-2.
“We are delighted to participate in the Canadian life sciences partnering mission to Boston and to be given the opportunity to share with a targeted audience the continued progress of our lead candidate, COTI-2”, said Dr Wayne Danter, CEO of COTI. “This new data will stimulate further discussions as we continue to evaluate our options pertaining to a licensing deal for COTI-2.”
Critical Outcome Technologies Inc
