Teva and OncoGenex Present Preclinical Data on the Activity of its Antisense Compound Custirsen at the American Association of Cancer Research Annual Meeting

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.

and OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

announced today that new preclinical data of their investigational compound custirsen in castrate resistant prostate cancer were presented this week at the 102nd Annual Meeting of the AACR. These data provide additional evidence in support of the clinical potential of custirsen, a drug designed to block production of clusterin, that is currently being investigated in Phase III studies for CRPC. Clusterin, a cell survival protein is over-produced in several cancer types and in response to many cancer treatments. Study results show that clusterin regulates epithelial-mesenchymal transition (

) induced by the growth factor TGF beta and the transcription factor TWIST1 in prostate cancer cells. Both TGF beta and TWIST1 are known to be important regulators of EMT, the process in which cells undergo multiple biochemical changes that result in cancer cell migration, invasion and metastasis. These findings provide supporting evidence to the mechanism of clusterin expression and its relevance in the EMT of cancer cells.