ANTICANCER INC. PLANNING CLINICAL TRIALS AT THREE SOVIET HOSPITALS

ANTICANCER INC. PLANNING CLINICAL TRIALS AT THREE SOVIET HOSPITALS under recent agreements with the institutions. The San Diego contract testing firm plans to enter into additional individual contracts with U.S. drug companies to carry out clinical testing of anticancer drugs in the Soviet Union. The firm has not yet reached any agreements with drug firms, but AntiCancer President Robert Hoffman says trials "could begin in the next few months." The three hospitals, all located in Moscow, are the All Union Cancer Research Center, the All Union Scientific Center for Hematology and the Herzen Moscow Cancer Research Institute. Hoffman said the Soviet hospitals are "centralized institutions with large patient populations" that offer the opportunity to conduct a clinical trial with a large population "under standard uniform conditions." Under the agreement with the hospitals, AntiCancer will have access to patient records. AntiCancer Inc. was founded three years ago by Hoffman and Hara Stuthas, both from the University of California at San Diego, where Hoffman is a professor. Hoffman said AntiCancer has conducted preclinical trials for five major pharmaceutical companies. The privately-held company will first conduct preclinical trials of a drug in the U.S. before offering to do clinicals in the Soviet Union. Hoffman began collaborating with scientists in the Soviet Union 15 years ago, as a participant in the National Academy of Sciences scientist exchange program. AntiCancer Inc. has obtained four Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants from the National Cancer Institute in the last two years. The grants were for development of technology for drug development and evaluation and for the development of DNA probes for the diagnosis of colon cancer and pre-malignancy.