TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - April 22, 2013) - Arch Biopartners Inc ("Arch" or the "Company")(CNSX:ACH)(OTCBB:FOIFF) today announced Dr. Stephen Robbins and his co-collaborators have been awarded $750,000 from Alberta Innovates' Collaborative Research and Innovation Opportunities ("CRIO") Cancer Project to support his team's ongoing work in developing new diagnostic and therapeutic treatments for malignant brain tumours.
Arch has been assigned the commercial rights to the brain tumour targeting technology developed by Dr. Robbins and his team and will be acting as the industry partner in the grant. Arch will be contributing $50,000 per year for the next 3 years.
Support for the project "Development of New Imaging Agents and Therapeutic Platforms for Improving Clinical Outcomes for Brain Tumour Patients" is being provided by Alberta Innovates - Health Solutions through funds from the Alberta Cancer Prevention Legacy Fund. The funds are awarded in three equal yearly installments.
"Arch Biopartners is pleased to be collaborating with Dr. Stephen Robbins and his University of Calgary research team and helping support this important initiative," said Richard Muruve, CEO of Arch.
About Malignant Glioma
There are approximately 70,000 new patients with malignant glioma each year and clinical outcomes for these patients have not changed substantially over the past 30 years. Average survival rates remain at a dismal 12-15 months and long term survivors (i.e. those surviving more than 3 years) are rare.
This poor survival rate is linked to brain tumour initiating cells (BTICs) and invasive glioma cells which represent disease reservoirs that are not detectable using current diagnostic techniques as they are indiscernible from normal tissue on using MRI. As a result, these cells are usually left behind in brain tissue post surgery and often lead to tumour relapse and poor patient outcomes.
Therefore, a significant unmet medical need and commercial opportunity is the ability to target BTICs and invasive glioma cells for the purpose of imaging, diagnosing and developing targeted therapies to improve patient outcomes and survival rates.
About the Arch Solution
Dr. Robbins' team has developed proprietary molecules that identify both BTICs and invasive glioma cells. Arch anticipates that the imaging of BTICs will lead to improvements in the surgical and therapeutic management of brain tumours. A longer term objective is to adapt these proprietary targeting molecules to deliver anti-cancer drugs directly to BTICs and other brain cancer cells.
About Arch Biopartners
Arch Biopartners is a portfolio based biotechnology company established to develop new products and technology for sale to pharmaceutical and industrial companies.
The Company's website address is: www.archbiopartners.com .
For more information on the Company, please consult the other public documents filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com .
Forward-Looking Statements
All statements, other than statements of historical fact, in this news release are forward looking statements that involve various risks and uncertainties, including, without limitation, statements regarding the future plans and objectives of the Company. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate. Actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. These and all subsequent written and oral forward-looking statements are based on the estimates and opinions of management on the dates they are made and are expressly qualified in their entirety by this notice. The Company assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements should circumstances or management's estimates or opinions change.
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