SANDOZ KIDNEY PLASMINOGEN ACTIVATOR TRIALS MAY BEGIN NEXT YEAR

SANDOZ KIDNEY PLASMINOGEN ACTIVATOR TRIALS MAY BEGIN NEXT YEAR, licensing partner Collaborative Research said in its recently released annual report for fiscal 1985 ended Aug. 31. "Shipments of KPA (kidney plasminogen activator) have already been made to Sandoz AG, our contract partner, for clinical trials that are scheduled to begin during fiscal 1986," Collaborative Research stated. Under the license agreement, which was announced in March 1984, Collaborative Research is responsible for the manufacture of all pre-marketing KPA material as well as for research into the most cost-effective method of large-scale commercial production. Sandoz has clinical testing responsibility and will market KPA worldwide under a royalty agreement with Collaborative Research ("The Pink Sheet" March 26, 1984, T&G-3). The Collaborative Research annual report said that the company is currently producing the clot-dissolving agent via a proprietary tissue-culture process from human kidney cells, noting that the firm's investigations into large-scale production techniques have included expressing KPA in other mammalian cells as well as in yeast. "The work in yeast will exploit our recently announced advances that allow us to produce and secrete larger amounts of foreign proteins than was formerly possible," the report states. KPA is the precursor of urokinase, an enzyme that dissolves blood clots. According to the company, KPA differs from urokinase in that it does not interfere with normal blood clotting processes, and instead remains inactive until encountering a clot. "We believe that KPA has significant potential for the successful clinical treatment of heart disease, stroke and deep vein thrombosis," the firm said. Collaborative Research noted that during fiscal 1985, the company was selected by the National Cancer Institute as the only supplier of natural Interleukin-2 for Phase I clinical trials in cancer patients. The firm has been developing the product jointly with Triton Biosciences. In addition, the company indicated that the launch of eight new products helped increase sales of biomedical products 22% over fiscal 1984 levels.