Quest PharmaTech Inc. announced that a U.S patent has been granted to its lead product candidate MAb AR 9.6 that will protect many isoforms of monoclonal antibody including IgE and its AllergoOncology Technology. MAb AR 9.6 licensed from University of Nebraska Medical Centre binds to a novel tumor associated marker (truncated O-Glycan bearing MUC16) and has potential use in targeted cancer therapy for pancreatic, ovarian and breast cancer. MAb AR 9. 6 blocks the activation of growth factor receptors and thereby inhibits phosphorylation of Akt, which leads to reduced cell proliferation, in vivo tumor growth and metastasis.

Quest has also established and validated the tumor-targeting ability of AR9.6 as a promising theranostic agent in animal models for immuno-positron emission tomography, fluorescence guided surgery and radioimmunotherapy. This lead product has already generated six manuscripts in peer reviewed journals and two U.S patents, and the program is in the late preclinical stage. Quest is a pioneer in the field of monoclonal antibody-based cancer therapy and has developed the antibody-based immunotherapy technology by using very low dose murine monoclonal antibodies against secreted tumor associated antibodies to stimulate the immune system to fight against cancer.

The antibody technology was transferred to OncoQuest, in which Quest presently holds a 42.5% ownership interest, in 2015 for further development and was subsequently purchased by a Korean-based company pursuant to an asset transfer agreement in April 2020. The antibody immunotherapy using oregovomab is now being developed by Korea-based CanariaBio Co Ltd. which has recently completed the enrollment of 602 patients in its Phase III clinical study (FLORA-5; QPT-ORE-005; GOG-3035; NCT04498117) with participation of 163 sites across 16 countries.