Summit Glycoresearch Corporation (Taizo Horimoto, President, hereinafter referred to as Summit Glycoresearch), an affiliate of Sumitomo Corporation (Motoyuki Oka, President & CEO, hereinafter referred to as Sumitomo) specializing in strategic business in the field of biotechnology, has launched joint research with Sapporo Medical University on new diagnostics for prostate cancer using artificial lectins, a powerful tool for sugar chain analysis.

In recent years, the number of prostate cancer patients has been increasing rapidly in Japan and the importance of early detection and controlling prognosis in the medical field has been growing. At present, prostate cancer is diagnosed by measuring the amount of a protein called PSA (prostate-specific antigen) in the blood. However, the PSA value is known to increase not just for cancer, but also for benign prostate hypertrophy and prostatitis. Even in such false-positive cases, it is necessary to take a small amount of prostate tissue from the body by using a needle and to examine the sample under a microscope to check for any cancer cells in order to confirm the diagnosis when cancer is suspected. This is a painful examination for patients and therefore medical providers are asking for more accurate and highly sensitive diagnostic agents to be developed.

PSA is a type of protein called glycoprotein that is found in the body and has sugar chains bound to it. It is reported that, in prostate cancer patients, changes were seen in the PSA sugar chains. Summit Glycoresearch and Sapporo Medical University [Associate Professor, Dr. Toshihiko Torigoe, M.D., Ph.D., Department of Pathology (1), School of Medicine] focused on the changes in sugar chains, and both parties agreed to jointly develop more accurate and high-sensitivity diagnostics that would detect sugar chain differences in PSA with the artificial lectin-based technology of Summit Glycoresearch. Both parties thereby concluded a joint research contract on August 1, 2006.

In the joint development, Summit Glycoresearch will produce the artificial lectin that detects the PSA glycoform. This will be used in turn as a detection probe to develop a detection system that will be capable of highly sensitive identification of prostate cancer. Furthermore, Summit Glycoresearch wishes to promote the development of new diagnostic agents by verifying the detection system in the joint clinical research with Sapporo Medical University.

Incidentally, the onset of prostate cancer varies greatly by race and other factors such as dietary habit. It is reported that a higher occurrence of prostate cancer is found in the West, especially in Americans. Although the occurrence in Japanese was previously lower, it has been rapidly increasing in recent years as a result of westernized dietary habits in Japan. The number of new prostate cancer patients per annum in Japan was approximately 7,000 and the number of deaths was approximately 3,500 in 1990. In 2015, the numbers are expected to rise to approximately 26,000 and 13,500 respectively, and the rise in the number of occurrences is the highest out of the solid tumors. The development of diagnostic agents with the aim of early detection and accurate follow-up will therefore be all the more important. The PSA test is widely used as a screening method to detect prostate cancer early, however false-positive results may be obtained and it is difficult to identify the level of tumor malignancy because the test simply captures quantitative changes of the protein.

[Background]

Summit Glycoresearch, which obtained the basic patent for artificial lectins (Patent No. 3658394, "Lectins for Sugar Chain Analysis and Their Usages") in March 2005, utilized this technology and succeeded in developing lectins that differed from native lectins in specificity and affinity. Development of these artificial lectins enabled the detection of sugar chains that could not be detected by using the previous methods. In this environment, Summit Glycoresearch makes efforts to contribute to healthcare by vigorously fostering the clinical application of artificial lectin-based sugar chain analysis technology.

Dr. Toshihiko Torigoe, Department of Pathology (1) Associate Professor in Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, is the leading expert on cancer research such as cancer vaccine. He also conducts immunological research on the stress protein (heat shock protein [HSP]) that is produced on a cellular and molecular level as the body's response to stress. Also, with the research groups of Professor Noriyuki Satoh [Department of Pathology (1)] and gInnovation Plaza Hokkaido" [Japan Science and Technology Agency], Dr. Torigoe was the first in the world to succeed in developing a reagent that provides advance determination of whether or not cancer vaccine is effective for individual patients. He also continues to conduct research on cancer immune control by HSP expression and functional control, because HSP controls the quality of intracellular proteins and at the same time is closely involved with immune systems such as the antigen-presenting mechanism and natural immune activation.

[Profile of Sapporo Medical University]

1. Foundation: April 1, 1950
2. Address: S.1, W.17, Chuo-ku, Sapporo
3. President: Kohzoh Imai, M.D., Ph.D.

Sapporo Medical University was founded (as Sapporo Medical College) in 1950, based on Hokkaido Women's Medical College established in 1945. The college became Sapporo Medical University when the School of Health Sciences was established in 1993. Its underling principals are "encouragement of progressive and free thought" and "pursuit of knowledge through medical research and the fundamental importance of contributing to community medicine". Since its establishment, Sapporo Medical University has been contributing to the improvement of advanced medicine, health and welfare fields, and roduced many graduates (medical researchers and healthcare professionals) who lead the field of medicine and health sciences in Hokkaido.

[Profile of Summit Glycoresearch as of August 31, 2006]

1.Foundation: January 31, 2003
2.Headquarters: 1-8-12, Harumi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
3.Management personnel:
Taizo Horimoto	President
Tsutomu Kawaguchi	Director
Tatsuro Irimura	Director (Professor and Head, Laboratory of Cancer Biology and Molecular Immunology, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, the University of Tokyo)
Kazuo Yamamoto	Director (Professor, Department of Integrated Biosciences,Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, the University of Tokyo)
Sukeaki Omura	Director (Medical & Biological Laboratories Co., Ltd., Director)
Sakae Kimura	Director (Sumitomo Corporation, General Manager of Medical Science Department)
Masahiro Sasaki	Director(,Summit Pharmaceuticals International Corporation,President and CEO)
4.Capital: 327.29 million yen
5.Number of employees: 21
6. Business purpose: Development and marketing of sugar chain biology-based pharmaceutical and diagnostic products