Simcere Pharmaceutical and OSI Form Collaboration

Simcere Pharmaceutical Group, a developer of branded generic and proprietary pharmaceuticals, has signed an agreement with OSI Pharmaceuticals, a biotechnology company, to develop, manufacture and market its KDR/Kit inhibitor OSI-930 in China.

According to Simcere, OSI-930 is an orally active inhibitor of two clinically validated targets: c-Kit and the vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-2. OSI-930 is designed to target both cancer cell proliferation and blood vessel growth in selected tumors.

In preclinical studies, OSI-930 shows broad efficacy in tumor models representative of small cell lung cancer, glioblastoma, colorectal, renal, head and neck, non-small cell lung cancer and gastric cancers, said Simcere.

OSI Pharmaceuticals has completed a Phase I dose escalation study of OSI-930 in healthy volunteers. A Phase I single agent dose escalation study in cancer patients has identified a recommended Phase II dose and a Phase Ib dose escalation study with erlotinib has also identified a recommended dose for the combination.