Abbott Pharmaceuticals selects more cancer targets for additional development

Abbott Pharma has chosen two more cancer drug development targets from biotech firm Celera Genomics.

Through a collaboration agreement, Abbott had already selected two targets in April of last year and two earlier in February. Abbott has agreed to develop and commercialise targets found in partnership to Celera.

Under the deal’s terms, Abbott is screening antigens found by Celera, in the hope of developing antibodies and small molecule drugs which target over-expressed cell-surface proteins identified by Celera as targets for fighting cancer.

President of Celera Genomics, Kathy Ordonez said she was delighted with the development: “We have performed outstanding work on our proteomics platform over the past few years, and we’ve made good progress towards discovering and validating targets in pancreatic, lung, colon, breast, gastric, prostate and renal cancers.

“The selection of four of these targets by Abbott in the last month further demonstrates the value of this platform for our current and potential partners.”

Celera currently has seven antigens undergoing research, which Ms Ordonez said the firm hoped to move towards “therapeutic development through current and future collaborations”.

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