Cantab Pharmaceuticals plc announced that a preliminaryanalysis of a Phase I/II clinical trial on LM-CD45, its drug forpreventing acute rejection episodes following organtransplantation, was presented last week at the BritishTransplant Society meeting in Exeter.

In the open-label safety study on 40 patients, donor kidneyswere treated prior to transplantation with LM-CD45, which is apair of monoclonal antibodies that bind to the CD45 antigen onthe surface of the kidney's dendritic cells.

Lawrence Goldberg of St. Mary's Hospital in London reportedthat the patients were followed for three months after theyreceived the transplanted kidneys. The drug proved to be safeand no patients died, although four kidneys were lost, one fromunremitting rejection. Thirty of the transplants were analyzedfor their ability to take up LM-CD45, as measuredimmunohistologically. Goldberg reported that there was asignificant correlation (p<0.05) between uptake and reductionin the number of acute rejection episodes.

Researchers at Cantab (NASDAQ:CNTBY) of Cambridge, England,are developing LM-CD45 in collaboration with BaxterHealthcare Corp. of Deerfield, Ill.

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