AVI BioPharma Announces Positive Results With Neugene Antisense Drugs

AVI BioPharma presented positive results from two preclinical studies at the 87th Annual Meeting of the Endocrine Society being held in San Diego June 4-7, 2005. The presentations discuss application of Neugene antisense drugs for treating prostate cancer and overcoming chemotherapy resistance in ovarian cancer.

The first study, "Development of a Neutrally Charged Antisense-based Androgen Receptor Antagonist for Prostate Cancer Therapy," demonstrates that down-regulation of androgen receptor expression by Neugene antisense oligomers may be an alternative therapeutic approach to antagonize androgen receptor function for prostate cancer therapy.

The second study, "X-Linked Inhibitor of Apoptotic Protein, XIAP, Expression Correlates With Chemotherapeutic Resistance in Mismatch Repair Deficient Ovarian Cancer," evaluated using Neugene drugs to target the XIAP gene, which has been found to protect cancer cells from the effects of radiation. Study results suggest that antisense targeting XIAP produces a significant decrease in expression of XIAP levels and a corresponding decrease in cancer cell viability in an ovarian cancer model.