Singapore: Australian biotechnology company Minomic International has collaborated with US partner to develop a potential new therapy for prostate cancer based on its existing antibody screening technology.

The company has made an agreement with Catalent Pharma Solutions to develop Minomic's MIL-38 antibody drug conjugate (ADC) as a therapeutic product, rather than a screening target.

Minomic currently uses this antibody target in a novel prostate cancer screening technology known as MiStat, which is expected to be launched globally in 2015.

Under the terms of this latest agreement, Catalent will redesign MIL-38 as a therapeutic antibody using its proprietary GPEx technology for a clinical study, with production to be scaled up on successful outcome.

Dr Brad Walsh, CEO, Minomic said pre-clinical trials of the MIL-38 antibody target as a therapeutic had been extremely promising.

"Our ultimate aim is to leverage our existing technology to not only screen for prostate cancer, but to treat it," he said.

"This collaboration is an important step to develop our MIL-38 antibody for next stage clinical trials as a therapeutic application. We expect this trial to begin as early as Q2, 2015 in Australia. We welcome this collaboration and look forward to working with Catalent on this important project."

Barry Littlejohns, president, Catalent Biologics his company's proprietary GPEx technology enabled high-speed creation of mammalian cells lines, ensuring drug development projects were brought to clinic more rapidly than was otherwise possible.

He commented, "We hope that this therapeutic collaboration, combining Minomic's pioneering work in non-invasive test kits for early detection of prostate cancer and Catalent's drug development expertise will help bring a potentially life-saving treatment to market as expeditiously as possible."