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To Combat Often Fatal Orphan Diseases, a Small Pharmaceutical Company Leads New Drug Investigation

Posted on: Friday, 15 September 2006, 06:00 CDT

NEW YORK, Sept. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Often fatal "orphan diseases," which affect relatively few people -- under 200,000 -- seldom get as much attraction as heart disease, for example. A small pharmaceutical company is trying to change that.

Callisto Pharmaceuticals' drug development program is focused on anti-cancer agents. Because of the small number of affected individuals, large and mid-size pharmaceutical companies typically do not target them for development of new drugs or therapies. Among these orphan diseases are carcinoid cancer, acute leukemia and multiple myeloma. See http://www.callistopharma.com/ .

"Currently there is no cure available to the thousands of patients with carcinoid cancer," says Nancy O'Hagan, President and Founder of the Caring for Carcinoid Foundation, and a metastatic carcinoid patient herself. "We are delighted to see companies such as Callisto stepping forward with their own research and conducting clinical trials of promising new treatments for these fatal and often overlooked diseases."

"Simply put, being a small company, we're able to target orphan diseases with their smaller anticipated markets because our overhead is lower than larger companies," says Gary Jacob, Callisto's CEO.

The drug candidate Atiprimod is in development to treat advanced carcinoid cancer, for patients who have failed all prior approved therapies, as well as relapsed multiple myeloma, a blood cancer. The affected populations are 7,000 and 55,000, respectively. This drug inhibits tumor growth and the growth of new blood vessels.

Callisto's second drug candidate in the clinic, L-Annamycin, is being developed as a treatment for forms of relapsed acute leukemia, a devastating blood cancer. It has a novel therapeutic profile, including activity against drug resistant tumors and significantly reduced cardiotoxicity, or damage to the heart, compared to currently available drug alternatives. Presently, 44,000 people in the U. S. suffer from this disease.

According to the National Institutes of Health's Office of Rare Diseases, "an orphan or rare disease is generally considered to have a prevalence of fewer than 200,000 affected individuals in the United States." They're life-threatening or chronically debilitating and have limited, if any, treatments. Special combined efforts are required to address them and typically there are few options but to live as comfortably as possible.

For more information go to http://www.callistopharma.com/ and http://www.caringforcarcinoid.org/ .

NOTE to editors: Jacob available for interview.

CONTACT: Cyndie Burkhardt (212) 217-9065, cyndie@thepromofact.com

Callisto Pharmaceuticals

CONTACT: Cyndie Burkhardt for Callisto Pharmaceuticals, +1-212-217-9065,cyndie@thepromofact.com

Source: PRNewswire

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