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Affitech to play key role in major EU embryonal tumor pipeline project
Proprietary discovery platforms to be utilized to identify fully human therapeutic antibody candidates

14 Sep 2006 - Affitech announced that it has been selected to participate in the new European Union E.E.T. Pipeline project to identify fully human therapeutic antibody candidates for Embryonal Tumors (ET) by using its antibody discovery platform. The E.E.T. Pipeline project is a multidisciplinary consortium of European institutions and SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprise), which the EU is funding with 4 million for developing new methods of diagnosis and treatment for ET. Such methods would be based on gene expression profiling of tumors and would include other post-genomic investigative technologies. The EU has taken this initiative since Embryonal Tumors are classified as orphan diseases, but they do not comprise large enough markets to justify the costs of drug development for the pharmaceutical industry.
 
The early manifestation of Embryonal Tumors in infants and young children suggests that only a limited number of genetic changes may lead to the transformed phenotype. Although cDNA and array -based studies have given insight into potential therapeutic targets, only a limited number of studies have addressed the functional analysis of identified target genes.