Navidea Biopharmaceuticals Announces Research Agreement with the University of Pennsylvania Evaluating Tc99m Tilmanocept as a Prognostic Marker for Glioblastoma
Navidea Biopharmaceuticals (NYSE American: NAVB) has signed a Sponsored Research Agreement with the University of Pennsylvania to explore Tc99m tilmanocept imaging in glioblastoma. This imaging aims to evaluate tumor growth rates and overall survival, targeting M2-type Tumor Associated Macrophages (TAMs). The project, led by Dr. Ali Nabavizadeh, seeks to correlate imaging results with therapeutic responses. Navidea emphasizes the potential of its tilmanocept platform to improve cancer treatment outcomes.
- Collaboration with University of Pennsylvania can enhance research credibility.
- Potential to use Tc99m tilmanocept as a prognostic biomarker in glioblastoma.
- Research may lead to valuable applications for improving patient treatment.
- Dependence on successful outcomes from preclinical studies to progress to human trials.
- Risks involved in obtaining regulatory approvals for drug candidates.
Glioblastoma (“GBM”) is the most aggressive and most common primary central nervous system tumor in adults and there is an urgent need for new therapies. Macrophages play an important role in tumor biology. They are a major population of non-cancer cells in GBM, representing as many as half of all cells in some cases. These Tumor Associated Macrophages (“TAMs”) may then be a viable target for tumor therapies or serve as a biomarker for monitoring tumor status.
Broadly, active macrophages can be of a tumor suppressing type (M1 macrophages) or of a tumor promoting type (M2 macrophages). The TAMs are typically M2-like and are known to express high levels of CD206, the macrophage mannose receptor that Tc99m tilmanocept targets. This research has as its hypothesis that the M2 TAMs in GBM can be imaged with Tc99m tilmanocept, and that this imaging can serve as a predictive tool for outcome with and without use of an immunotherapy that works in part to change the M2-like macrophage population to a more M1-like state, promoting tumor killing.
In these preclinical studies, Tc99m tilmanocept imaging will be evaluated in correlation with tumor growth rate, and in separate studies Tc99m tilmanocept imaging will be performed before and after anti-interleukin-6 therapy, which has been shown to promote TAM switching from the M2 to M1 state. Study endpoints will include quantitative imaging compared to pathology and overall survival.
Dr.
“TAMs are a very important component of immune microenvironment in GBM, and it is crucial to have reliable imaging biomarkers to quantify and monitor TAMs during the course of treatment,”
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