Minomic to reformulate its MIL-38 prostate cancer screening target as a therapy with Catalent

Australian biotech company Minomic International will join forces with the USA's Catalent Pharma (NYSE: CTLT) to develop its MIL-38 antibody drug conjugate as a potential therapy for prostate cancer.

The company currently uses it as an antibody target in a novel prostate cancer screening technology, MiStat, which has an expected global launch date in 2015. Under the terms of the agreement with Catalent, MIL-38 will be redesigned as a therapeutic antibody, with production to be scaled up on successful outcome.

Brad Walsh, Minomic’s chief executive, said preclinical trials of the MIL-38 antibody target as a therapeutic had been promising. He said: "Our ultimate aim is to leverage our existing technology to not only screen for prostate cancer, but to treat it. This collaboration is an important step to develop our MIL-38 antibody for next stage clinical trials as a therapeutic application. We expect this trial to begin as early as Q2, 2015 in Australia. We welcome this collaboration and look forward to working with Catalent on this important project.”