Aphios
Awarded Contract from National Cancer Institute for
Isolation of Natural Anticancer Drugs
July
17, 2001
— Aphios Corporation
has been awarded a Fast Track SBIR contract entitled “SuperFluids™
Isolation of Natural Anticancer Drugs” from the National
Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institutes of Health (NIH).
“The
objective of NCI’s (SBIR) initiative is to develop
a process for the extraction and purification of potential
anticancer, natural product drugs from a variety of plant,
marine organism or microbial sources. Many of these products
will be useful commercial targets and will be needed in
large quantities, first for the drug development studies
and, if proven successful, for the commercialization of
the drug . . . The Developmental Therapeutics Program of
the National Cancer Institute currently has several products
under investigation which could be considered as candidates
for isolation and purification using the SCFE (supercritical
fluid extraction) technique, including two that have
progressed to the level of clinical projects (geldanamycin
and bryostatin).” U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services, PHS 2001-1, Nov. 30, 2000. Through similar initiatives,
the National Cancer Institute discovered and developed Taxol™,
the most potent and important anticancer drug developed
to date with a market value of approximately $2 billion
in 2000.
Aphios has developed and broadly-patented several SuperFluids
technologies for the discovery, isolation, manufacturing
and delivery of natural pharmaceuticals such as the anticancer
drugs Taxol®, bryostatin 1 and camptothecin.
SuperFluids™ are near-critical and supercritical
fluids used with or without polar co-solvents. These fluids
are normally gases, such as carbon dioxide, which when compressed,
exhibit enhanced thermodynamic properties. SuperFluids™
technologies are rapid, selective and cost-effective. SuperFluids™
are also environmental-friendly since they eliminate or
minimize the use of toxic organic solvents while utilizing
renewable natural resources.
“Conventional
extraction and purification processes often require solvent
extraction of kilogram quantities of biomass with halogenated
solvents which, in addition to being very costly to purchase
and to dispose of, also contribute to the pollution of the
environment. Subsequent purification of a crude extract
also requires repetitive chromatography that once again
frequently employs halogenated solvents . . . The (Developmental
Therapeutics) Program (of the National Cancer Institute)
is currently using conventional methods for the preparation
of natural product drug candidates and will assist in providing
starting materials for the process, reference standards
of the final products, and analytical validation methods
for the final products….The Program is privy to broad experience
in the production of both synthetic and natural product
bulk drug products and can make valuable contributions to
the final process that would help make it more commercially
attractive if the compound is successful in preclinical
and clinical evaluation.” op. cit., 2000.
Aphios
Corporation is a biopharmaceutical company which is developing
enhanced therapeutics for health maintenance and the treatment
of human diseases with a focus on cancer, CNS disorders,
AIDS and other infectious diseases. Aphios Corporation
has developed several enabling technology platforms for
improving the discovery, manufacturing, delivery and safety
of therapeutic drugs, and has several enhanced therapeutic
drugs in development.
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Taxol™
is a registered trademark of the Bristol-Myers Squibb Company
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