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Wistar, Swedish firm team for new cancer therapy

The Wistar Institute in University City will collaborate with a Swedish biopharmaceutical company, with the goal of developing new cancer therapies.

The Wistar Institute in University City will collaborate with a Swedish biopharmaceutical company, with the goal of developing new cancer therapies.

The partnership with Cormorant Pharmaceuticals AB, of Stockholm, will pair Wistar's methods for analyzing tumor biopsies with Cormorant's experimental drug HuMax-IL8, which is in early-stage testing in patients at the National Cancer Institute.

Wistar scientist Dmitry I. Gabrilovich and colleagues have developed a new biomarker based on understanding how myeloid suppressor cells play a major role in the regulation of immune responses.

"This partnership provides us with the opportunity to assess the clinical utility of our new detection method of myeloid-derived suppressor cells in tumors," Gabrilovich said. "The evaluation of these cells directly in tumors is critically important for understanding the effect of the novel therapy developed by Cormorant."

Cormorant chief executive officer Maarten de Château said, "Wistar's biomarker analysis of the tumor samples will be instrumental in determining the effects of HuMax-IL8 on tumor immunosuppression."

Cormorant said the goal for its HuMax-IL8 monoclonal antibody is to "target the aggressive behavior of cancer cells and cancer stem cells in several cancer forms. This will then increase the efficacy of existing cancer therapies as well as reduce the resistance to them."

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