October 21, 2009 (FinancialWire) — Immunomedics, Inc. (NASDAQ: IMMU), a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing monoclonal antibodies to treat cancer and other serious diseases, has been awarded three Small Business Innovation Research grants by the National Institutes of Health, totaling $2.1 million payable over a period of two years.

One of the awards can be extended to three years with a potential $2.5 million additional funding, if certain goals and milestones are met.

The first award is a Phase I grant for the development of a hematopoietic tumor-targeting humanized antibody conjugated site-specifically with 4 interferon-a2b groups. This recombinant immunocytokine was created using the patented Dock-and-Lock method developed by scientists at Immunomedics and its majority-owned subsidiary, IBC Pharmaceuticals, Inc. In preclinical studies, this immunocytokine demonstrated very high anti-lymphoma efficacy.

The NIH has also awarded the company a multiyear Phase II grant for the development of F-18 labeled peptides for pretargeted positron-emission tomography, or PET, imaging of pancreatic cancer. Due to the lack of early detection and effective treatment, pancreatic cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States. The company recently reported a new proprietary method of labeling peptides with F-18 for improved PET imaging. (For more information, please refer to the company’s press release at www.immunomedics.com/news_pdf/2009_PDF/PR06152009b.pdf.) Two U.S. patents have been issued on this labeling method.

Another multiyear Phase II grant was awarded to support a clinical trial of combined radio- and immunotherapy of aggressive non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma . Combining veltuzumab (humanized anti-CD20 antibody) with yttrium-90-labeled epratuzumab (humanized anti-CD22 antibody) was found to improve treatment responses in a human lymphoma model, and now will be tested in patients. (Please refer to the company’s press release at www.immunomedics.com/news_pdf/2008_PDF/PR04142008A.pdf for more information.) This award can be renewed by NIH for 2 additional years if certain goals and milestones are achieved during the first year.

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