Development of cancer treatments

Circadian and CSIRO enter strategic research alliance to advance development of cancer treatments

• CSIRO and Circadian collaborate to enhance development of Circadian’s VEGF technology for biological-based cancer treatments
• CSIRO provides access to its world class infrastructure and research teams
• Circadian to provide funding and access to its technology

Dr Steve Morton, CSIRO Group Executive, announced today a new long term, strategic alliance between Circadian Technologies (ASX.CIR) and CSIRO to work together on the ongoing research and development of Circadian’s VEGF technology to develop promising new potential treatments for cancer.

The alliance is part of the CSIRO’s program to assist and facilitate development of new technologies with Australian biotech companies and will see CSIRO and Circadian collaborate in activities to aid the development of Circadian’s novel, biologics-based treatments for cancer and other serious diseases.

Circadian will provide funding and access to its technology and lead drug candidates (molecules), while CSIRO will provide access to its world class biological production infrastructure, process development capability and internal research expertise. The announcement comes on the opening day of the new Protein Production Facility at CSIRO funded by both the Federal and State Victorian Governments. This Facility forms a significant part of CSIRO’s infrastructure capability that is accessible to the Australian Biotech industry.

VEGF technology refers to Vascular Endothelial Growth Factors (VEGF), a class of proteins that play a critical role in regulating tumour blood supply. Circadian, which owns extensive intellectual property related to VEGF-C, VEGF-D and VEGF receptor R3, is developing antibodies to block these proteins to inhibit the growth and spread of cancerous cells or tumours.

Given the outstanding success of Avastin®, the first cancer treatment developed based on this approach by blocking the activity of VEGF-A, the development of antibodies targeting the VEGF proteins is arguably one of the most promising potential new treatment approaches for cancer.

Specifically, the CSIRO and Circadian alliance will focus on the development of improved production systems for Circadian’s molecules, molecular modelling, assay development, testing of future drug candidates as well as other projects which may be mutually agreed by the parties.

Robert Klupacs, CEO of Circadian said: “We are extremely excited by this collaboration. Having

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access to CSIRO’s world class infrastructure and research expertise will greatly assist us in bringing our molecules to the clinic. Circadian has a strong position in this area of potential therapeutics for cancer and we applaud the vision of the CSIRO to work closely with Australian companies such as ours, encouraging us to continue to develop important new treatments and innovations which may one day have the potential to impact on many lives globally.”

Dr Steve Morton CSIRO Group Executive said: ”CSIRO is very pleased to be working with Circadian, an Australian biotech company, to advance its product development pipeline. This alliance highlights that there is already industry uptake of our new Protein Production Facility and research capability. CSIRO is all about partnering with and delivering to Australian industry and our new Facility will be a key enabler for the biotech industry. “

ENDS

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