LYON, France and CAMBRIDGE, Mass., March 11, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — ERYTECH Pharma (Euronext Paris: ERYP – Nasdaq: ERYP), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing innovative therapies by encapsulating drug substances inside red blood cells, announced that an oral presentation entitled “Comprehensive proteomic profiling of erythrocytes following hypotonic dialysis-based drug encapsulation process“ will be presented today at the 22ndmeeting of the European Red Cell Research Society (ERCS) in Ascona, Switzerland. A poster highlighting the results of this work will also be presented at the ERCS Meeting and will be available on the Company’s website at www.erytech.com after March 11, 2019.
The lead investigational therapeutic produced using the Company’s ERYCAPS® encapsulation process, eryaspase, consisting of the enzyme L-asparaginase encapsulated inside donor-derived red blood cells, is currently being evaluated in the Phase 3 TRYbeCA-1 trial in metastatic pancreatic cancer1.In an earlier 141 patient randomized Phase 2b trial of eryaspase in combination with chemotherapy for the treatment of second-line metastatic pancreatic cancer, significant improvements in overall survival and progression free survival were observed versus chemotherapy alone with no apparent increase in toxicity2.
The erythrocyte proteomic profiling study being presented at the meeting was performed with the participation of the 3P5 Proteomic Platform (at the Paris-Descartes University, France) specialized in high-performance mass spectrometry protein identification and microanalysis. With the exception of L-asparaginase, profiling analysis revealed no significant difference in the proteomic landscape when comparing packed RBCs, ERYCAPS®-processed RBCs without enzyme, and ERYCAPS®-processed RBCs encapsulating L-asparaginase.
These results confirm the notion that the ERYCAPS® process does not significantly alter the properties of RBCs and that apart from the encapsulated drug substance, RBC-based therapeutics produced using this process have similar characteristics to that of unprocessed packed RBCs.
Dr. Patrick Mayeux, an expert on RBCs proteome at the Cochin Institute, Paris, France and Scientific Director of the 3P5 Proteomic Platform, recently commented: “The constant advancement of proteomics technologies now allows a comprehensive analysis of the whole proteome of RBCs.” ERYTECH plans to advance candidates using the ERYCAPS® platform and to explore the field of RBC-based therapeutics, building on these proteomic results and future findings regarding RBC biology.
