(New York, June 14)--Recepta, Brazil's first oncology biotechnology company was launched today by PR&D, a Brazilian venture capital company, and the international non-profit Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (LICR). The company will explore the therapeutic potential of three antibodies discovered and characterized by LICR.
One of the antibodies in Receptas portfolio is expected to enter clinical trials this year. Internal review board permission has been granted by So Paulos Oswaldo Cruz German Hospital (HAOC), one of the centers of clinical excellence in Brazil, to conduct a clinical trial assessing the antibodys efficacy for patients with resected ovarian cancer. This will be the first phase II oncology clinical trial sponsored by a Brazilian company. Recepta will conduct preclinical work with investigators at the So Paulo Branch of LICR, which is based at HAOC.
According to the director of Recepta, Dr. Jos Fernando Perez, the company has benefited greatly from the international collaborations and support provided by LICR. Its important to appreciate that the Ludwig Institute is more than simply a share-holder in Recepta. This is a partnership that involves Ludwig Institute investigators from around the world contributing their knowledge and expertise to assist Receptas development efforts. Dr. Perez, who is the former director of FAPESP (State of Sao Paulo funding body), says that the partnership between LICR and PR&D evolved from an institutional partnership formed by LICR and FAPESP in the 1990s. That partnership created the internationally acclaimed ONSA (Organization for Nucleotide Sequencing and Analysis) and Human Cancer Genome Project (HCGP), state- and nation-wide sequencing programs, respectively, that brought Brazilian genomics to the worlds attention.
LICR's senior scientific officer, Dr. Andrew Simpson, who was a key player in ONSA and HCGP, says that the development of Recepta re-emphasizes the Institutes belief i
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Contact: Sarah L. White
swhite@licr.org
917-379-0398
Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research
14-Jun-2007