?TK |
5 January 2012
Prague, Jan 4 (CTK) - The Sotio biopharmaceutical company, whose majority owner is the richest Czech businessman Petr Kellner, raises objections to the information that it has developed medicines against prostate cancer, published in the daily E15 yesterday.
The company just participates in the research into a medicine of this kind, Sotio spokesman Miroslav Benes said.
E15 writes that the firm has already submitted an application for their patent protection. Now it is testing its products for the treatment of various stages of prostate cancer with the aim to prove their safety and efficacy.
Benes called it "ungrounded media speculations."
The company conducts research into the use of "dendritic cells" in cancer treatment. These cells, which are a part of leucocytes, are able to destroy harmful substances. The aim of the research is to find whether the cells can provoke an immunity reaction and destroy cancer cells.
"However, the perspective that the research will be completed with a medicine to be used in common clinical practice is still very distant. The research has not made such progress to justify media shortcuts like 'Sotio has an anti-cancer drug.'," Benes said.
The company must yet spend several years researching and verifying the results, he added.
115 writes that this year, Sotio plans to enter the third phase of the tests in which the medicines will be administered to hundreds and thousands of patients in several countries. Only then the firm can possibly register the medicines and their sale for a common clinical application, the paper says.
The company released such information on its website, too.
It writes that it wants to continue with an extensive international clinical study of the phase III. It has already ordered four studies on the use of cellular immunotherapy in various stages of prostate cancer (in phase II) that are to test the substance's efficacy and suitable dosage.
E15 writes that Kellner, who is personally involved in the project, is the majority share-holder in Sotio so far.
"PPF is a minority share-holder of Sotio. From this position I am not authorised either to comment on the composition of its share-holders' structure or speak on behalf of the firm," Milan Tomanek, spokesman for Kellner's PPF group, told E15.
The PPF will control the pharmaceutical company as a majority owner only after the firm is granted the patent and further investments in the development would require its capital increase, E15 writes.
Karel Nohejl, former head of the McKinsey & Co consulting firm's Czech branch, is Sotio general director and board chairman. Production director Petra Dobesova, former external relations section head at Philip Morris, and financial director Eva Rollerova also sit on the board.
Respected Czech doctors, from the Prague Motol Teaching Hospital, are main consultants and members of the company's supervisory board.
Sotio was established in the spring of 2010. Its share capital is ten million crowns. Its shareholders are the Hekto Dutch company and the Anthearose firm registered in Cyprus.
Sotio is preparing its medical products for an active cellular immunotherapy in its own laboratories, newly built in Prague-Holesovice district.
Apart from medicines against prostate cancer, Sotio plans to launch the development of drugs against ovary cancer in 2012, E15 writes.
($1=19.728 crowns)
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