Singapore, Feb 10, 2012: Patrys, an Australian-based clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, announced that the treatment of patients has now been completed in the phase I trial of the company’s PAT-SM6 anti-cancer antibody for the treatment of melanoma.

The primary trial objective was to establish safety and tolerability. No significant safety issues were observed or reported for any patients treated with PAT-SM6.

The secondary trial objective is to examine multiple secondary endpoints aimed at measuring the antitumor activity of PAT-SM6. Patrys expects the full trial data to be available by the end of March.

In August 2011, Patrys reported that analysis of tumor samples from two patients treated with PATSM6 found that the antibody had penetrated into the tumor biopsies, even though the doses were substantially below the anticipated therapeutic levels.

“We look forward to reporting, in detail, a complete data set from all of the treated patients by the end of the first quarter of 2012. The fact that we have hit the primary endpoint of the trial is very encouraging with our novel PAT-SM6 anti-cancer antibody and we are now able to move forward confidently with planning of our next PAT-SM6 clinical trial for patients with the blood cancer, multiple myeloma,” said Dr Marie Roskrow, Patrys’ chief executive officer.

PAT-SM6 is a natural human antibody that has shown promise as a potential treatment for multiple types of cancer including melanoma. It is the first reported clinical product to target an important protein on the surface of cancer cells called GRP78 that plays a number of key roles in cancer cell survival, growth and metastasis.