RICHMOND, British Columbia, April 14, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BioCurex Inc. (OTCBB:BOCX) provides the following update to its shareholders on technological and business advances with its technology.
A photo accompanying this release is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=9487
In November 2010, BioCurex announced the filing of a new patent within the Patent Cooperation Treaty, which provides a unified procedure for filing patent applications in many countries at the same time. This patent describes synthetic peptides to substitute for the antibodies the Company was using to detect the cancer marker, RECAF, in diagnostic applications and for potential use in therapeutic applications. Switching to this peptide provides significant advantages to the technical applications of the technology: the peptide can be tailored for better detection of RECAF in blood tests and as targeting agents to deliver a toxic payload (chemotherapeutic drugs, radiotherapy agents, cytotoxic agents or approaches) to cancer cells, thus reducing the side effects of current methodologies.
"Although switching to the peptide for use in our RECAF blood tests has delayed the commercial applications of our technology, the advantages that this switch has provided have been worth the time spent," said BioCurex CEO Ricardo Moro, M.D. "We have just finished converting our canine tests for our OncoPet Diagnostics subsidiary to the peptide-based test. We have seen a very significant reduction in the amount of false positives in animals with inflammatory diseases."
Dr. Moro continued, "When trying to decide which test to convert first, we selected the canine tests because of the level of interest on the OncoPet RECAF test expressed by several distributors/representatives and possible licensees, and because we could proceed to commercialization without further regulatory approvals. We are working on the terms of these agreements and we expect that they will finalize in the weeks to come."
Currently, the Company is concentrating its efforts on converting the human cancer blood RECAF test to the peptide version. The BioCurex team believes that this will be very advantageous with the Company's strategy concerning current licensees, additional licensing partners, and filing FDA applications with this test as explained in previous releases.
Moreover, this peptide can be used in other potential therapeutic applications. For example, it can be incorporated in the genome of a virus that does not infect human cells. The modified virus would then express the peptide on its surface and thus, the peptide would deliver the virus to the RECAF marker on cancer cells. This would lead potentially to a viral infection of the cancer cells and would kill the targeted cells without infecting or killing RECAF negative normal cells. These types of modified viruses are called oncolytic viruses and there is a great deal of work currently done in many laboratories engaged in finding ways to make them more cancer specific (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oncolytic_virus). The Company believes that its patent pending RECAF binding peptides may be of great use in this area.
The BioCurex team has also been working on coating magnetic beads with the RECAF binding peptide for purging bone marrow from leukemic cells for autologous (from oneself) bone marrow transplants. Leukemia patients requiring a transplant can receive either healthy bone marrow from another individual or their own. In the former case, sometimes the graft is not fully compatible with the host, resulting in a poor outcome for the patient. In the latter case, when the patient is transplanted with his or her own bone marrow, the graft may carry leukemia cells along, resulting in a recurrence of the leukemia. This can be minimized or even prevented by removing the malignant cells from the graft before injecting it into the patient. A potential way to remove those cancer cells is to add magnetic beads coated with BioCurex's peptide to the cells to be transplanted. In vitro preliminary results indicate that practically all leukemia cells can be removed while leaving over 80 percent of the healthy blood cells behind.
The Company has also found that gold nanoparticles coated with the RECAF binding peptides stick to cancer cells in culture. This strongly suggests that a system with a Kanzius machine can be used to specifically destroy cancer cells with radiofrequency. The Kanzius machine produces radiofrequency in a similar way that a short wave transmitter works (http://www.kanziuscancerresearch.org/research/research_updates). The radiofrequency is aimed at the tumor and it heats up the gold nanoparticles in a similar manner that a microwave oven heats up its contents. As the radiofrequency heats up the gold particles, the cancer cells in their immediate proximity are destroyed. The ability to target the peptide-coated gold particles selectively to RECAF bearing cancer cells should result in more efficient selective killing of only the cancer cells.
"These are some of the many exciting possibilities the discovery and patenting of these peptides have opened," said BioCurex Chairman Denis Burger, Ph.D. "Given their number and degree of specialization, our strategy will be to establish collaborations and/or licenses with research laboratories and companies already engaged in these promising fields, with BioCurex providing this new cancer-specific targeting mechanism. We plan to continue to focus on the diagnostic applications of this new peptide to better detect RECAF as a universal cancer marker and use the new opportunities with therapeutic applications as a licensing bonus to the Company."
The Company's Management wants to express its satisfaction with the results obtained thus far. Management looks forward to the many possibilities this new technology has facilitated, with an emphasis on developing potential strategic alliances to explore a number of cancer therapies based on RECAF and the newly patent pending peptides.
About BioCurex, Inc.
BioCurex, Inc. is a biotechnology company that is developing products based on patented and proprietary technology in the area of cancer diagnostics. The technology identifies a universal cancer marker known as RECAF.
RECAF is a molecule that is present on cancer cells but not detected in significant levels on healthy cells or benign tumor cells. It is the receptor for alpha-fetoprotein and is classified as an oncofetal antigen due to its presence on both fetal and malignant tissues. This characteristic makes RECAF a more accurate indicator of cancer than most current tumor markers.
BioCurex plans to commercialize its technology through licensing arrangements with companies that develop and market diagnostic tests for the large automated clinical laboratory setting, through development and marketing of non-automated clinical laboratory tests, through development of rapid, point-of-care test formats, and through marketing of its OncoPet RECAF test for cancer in companion animals.
BioCurex has signed licensing agreements for its cancer detection blood tests with Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT) and with Alere (NYSE:ALR), formerly Inverness Medical Innovations (NYSE:IMA).
For further information on these agreements visit:
http://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1092562/000100487808000117/sb2amnd4s1april08.txt.
For more information about the Company, please visit www.BioCurex.com.
For more information about OncoPet Diagnostics Inc., please visit:
www.OncoPetDiagnostics.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
The Company has not authorized the release of this information in any form that contravenes the Communication Act and will not be responsible for unsolicited massive distribution of this material by e-mail or facsimile by unauthorized parties. Statements in this press release, which are not historical facts, are "forward-looking statements'' within the meaning given to that term in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The Company intends that such forward-looking statements be subject to the safe harbors created thereby. Since these statements involve risks and uncertainties and are subject to change at any time, the Company's actual results could differ materially from expected results.
The photo is also available via AP PhotoExpress
