National Cancer Institute Selects SRI International Breast Cancer Therapeutic for Further Development

Competitive “RAID” Program Will Accelerate Preclinical Development of Promising New Drug Candidate

MENLO PARK, California – December 11, 2002 – The National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Developmental Therapeutics Program has selected a novel breast cancer treatment agent discovered by SRI International, an independent research organization, for NCI’s competitive RAID (Rapid Access to Intervention Development) program. The RAID program will accelerate further preclinical development of this drug candidate to determine its efficacy against hormone-dependent breast cancer.

Using the considerable infrastructure and resources of NCI’s Developmental Therapeutics Program , RAID removes barriers that academic and research organizations can face in bringing promising new drug treatments to readiness for clinical trials. The ideal result is reaching a clinical “proof of principle” that would make the treatment a viable candidate for expanded clinical evaluation. The RAID program does not sponsor clinical trials.

Output from the program, which will be provided by the NCI to SRI, could include synthesized material, formulation research, pharmacokinetic studies, and toxicology reports.   The output would be used to support an SRI-held Investigational New Drug (IND) application and clinical trials.

The principal investigator of the RAID study is Nurulain Zaveri, Ph.D., a program director in SRI's Biosciences Division. The promising breast cancer drug candidate was discovered by a team of scientists led by Dr. Masato Tanabe, Ph.D., a 1999 recipient of the prestigious Distinguished Service Award from the Japanese Pharmaceutical Society.

“SRI has discovered and developed several FDA-approved drugs. We currently have four drugs in clinical development, including a SERM (selective estrogen receptor modulator) to treat breast cancer that will soon complete Phase I clinical studies. The drug that has been selected for a RAID grant is particularly interesting: it is a first-in-class, dual-specific SERM that inhibits estrogen synthesis in addition to being a tissue-specific estrogen receptor modulator,” said Glenn Rice, Ph.D., vice president of SRI’s Biopharmaceutical Division. “We are particularly excited about the potential of this drug and our clinical development plan because the drug appears to be active against Tamoxifen-resistant tumors.”

SRI’s Biosciences Division works with government and commercial pharmaceutical clients to discover and pursue lead compounds and advance research of therapeutics and vaccines in cancer, neuroscience, and infectious diseases. The group provides a broad range of preclinical discovery and development services, including medicinal chemistry, custom synthesis, efficacy and safety evaluations, pharmacokinetics and metabolism studies, analytical chemistry and formulation design and production in a GLP and cGMP environment.

About SRI International

Silicon Valley-based SRI International ( http://www.sri.com ) is one of the world's leading independent research and technology development organizations. Founded as Stanford Research Institute in 1946, SRI has been meeting the strategic needs of clients for more than 55 years. The nonprofit research institute performs contract research and development for government agencies, commercial businesses and private foundations. In addition to conducting contract R&D, SRI licenses its technologies, forms strategic partnerships and creates spin-off companies.