On March 20, 2017 ERYTECH Pharma (Paris:ERYP) (ADR:EYRYY), a French clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing innovative therapies for rare forms of cancer and orphan diseases based on its proprietary ERYCAPS platform, encapsulating therapeutic drug substances inside red blood cells, reported the presentation of new anti-tumor data supporting the Company’s preclinical product erymethionase (ERY-MET) at the upcoming American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) (Free AACR Whitepaper) Annual Meeting, being held April 1 – 5, 2017 in Washington, D.C (Press release, ERYtech Pharma, MAR 20, 2017, View Source [SID1234518224]).

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Results from the preclinical study demonstrate that erymethionase, methionine gamma-lyase (MGL)-encapsulated in red blood cells using ERYTECH’s proprietary encapsulation platform technology, represents a promising new treatment approach against a broad range of cancers that rely on methionine metabolism. The research will be presented by Dr. Vanessa Bourgeaux, Program Leader at ERYTECH, during a poster session at the conference.

Dr. Bourgeaux stated, "Methionine dependence has emerged as a unique target for anti-cancer activity during the last two decades. While methionine gamma-lyase is a promising strategy for these cancers, its very short half-life in the body prohibited all attempts to develop MGL as cancer therapy. However, our work here shows that when encapsulated in red blood cells using our ERYCAPS technology, MGL is protected from degradation and overcomes the pharmacokinetic limitations resulting in increased half-life in vivo for effective potential use in a broad-range of methionine-dependent cancers."

Gil Beyen, Chairman and CEO of ERYTECH, added, "Erymethionase represents a novel product candidate in our tumor starvation arsenal. ERYTECH is progressively building its cancer metabolism platform with this second product candidate to complement eryaspase (GRASPA), ERYTECH’s lead product candidate. The posters presented at two immunotherapy medical meetings earlier this month and now promising data with erymethionase at AACR (Free AACR Whitepaper) underscore ERYTECH’s intention to develop the scope of products and applications for its technology platform."

Methionine is an essential amino acid, which is necessary for all cells to grow and multiply. More specifically, fast-growing tumor cells exhibit very high requirements of methionine to proliferate. The enzyme methionine gamma-lyase (MGL) mediates tumor starvation via systemic lowering of methionine levels. MGL is an enzyme with a short half-life and is dependent on a co-factor, a Vitamin B6 derivative which is naturally present in red blood cells, to demonstrate enzymatic activity. The preclinical studies in mouse models of erymethionase aimed to investigate the protection of MGL against degradation and immune reactions through encapsulation in erythrocytes (red blood cells).

ERYTECH researchers demonstrated that encapsulation of MGL in red blood cells both strongly improved the half-life of the enzyme and provided active co-factor to increase MGL activity and therefore, tumor starvation. The half-life of MGL increased from less than 24 hours when free to more than 10 days when encapsulated in red blood cells, with no toxicity reported. The preclinical study showed that combining a single weekly intravenous injection of erymethionase with daily pyridoxine (PN) supplementation led to a sustained methionine depletion in the plasma, and an inhibition of tumor growth for 45 days following the fifth erymethionase dose of 85% in the glioblastoma mouse model, and of 72% in the gastric cancer mouse model. Repeated injections of ERY-MET were also effective against established tumors in the gastric cancer model leading to a complete tumor regression.

Full details of the AACR (Free AACR Whitepaper) presentation follow:

Abstract # 2134 / Poster # 3: Use of methionine gamma-lyase-loaded erythrocytes to induce effective methionine depletion of cancer therapy
Presenter: Dr. Vanessa Bourgeaux
Poster Session/Section: PO.ET01.09 – New Targets 2/Section 6
Date: Monday, April 3
Time: 1:00 – 5:00 p.m. EDT
Location: Convention Center, Halls A-C