Mouse Trial Boosts Bertilimumab

Immune Pharmaceuticals‘ anti-eotaxin-1 monoclonal antibody, bertilimumab, got a boost from a preclinical trial against DSS-induced colitis. Tomer Adar, M.D. at the Digestive Diseases Institute, Shaare Zedek Medical Center, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, recently presented a poster on entitled, Inhibition of Eotaxin-1 (CCL 11) Ameliorates DSS-Induced Colitis; A Novel Potential Therapeutic Approach for Inflammatory Bowel Disease, at the United European Gastroenterology Week being held in Berlin, Germany.

This study was performed to evaluate the effect of eotaxin-1 (CCL-11) inhibition on BALB/c mice with dextran sodium sulfate (DSS)-induced colitis. The mice were treated with an anti-eotaxin-1 monoclonal antibody or a control antibody. Inhibition of eotaxin-1 resulted in significant amelioration of DSS-induced colitis demonstrated by statistically significant reduction in both disease activity index and body weight loss compared to controls. These results indicate the importance of eotaxin-1 in regulating intestinal mucosal inflammation, and its potential as a future therapeutic target in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

Bertilimumab is a fully human monoclonal antibody with high specificity for human eotaxin-1. Bertilimumab was originally developed by Cambridge Antibody Technologies, now part of MedImmune. Immune has initiated an international, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase II study comparing bertilimumab with placebo in 105 patients with moderate to severe ulcerative colitis. Patients are selected based on elevated eotaxin-1 levels from colonic biopsy samples. Topline data from this trial is expected in early 2015.