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The following article appeared in the Monday, June 23rd issue of the
Toronto Star:

Hormone Holds Hope for Repairing Intestine
by Leslie Papp, Medical Reporter

Toronto researchers have taken a major step in turning a hormone that
promotes intestinal growth into a drug to help people with bowel disease or
cancer.

They've developed an artificial variant of the naturally occurring hormone
that's three to five times more powerful in stinulating growth of the small
intestin'es lining. And human trials are expected to start next year.

"We still need to do some large animal toxicity testing, which government
agencies require us to du, but almost certainly we'll be into human studies
in 1998,"said Dr. Daniel Drucker of The Toronto Hospital.

The drug won't be a cure for bowel diseases but it might be able to fix
some of the severe intestinal damage such ailments cause, he said.

"Right now ther's nothing out there that physicians can use to repair the
bowl," said Drucker, director of the University of Toronto's endocrinology
division.

The hormone, called GLP-2, was discovered 15 years ago, but scientists
didn't know its purpose until Toronto researchers unravelled its
growth-promoting properties last year.

It triggers a thickening of the nutrient-absorbing inner lining of the
intestine, called the epithelium, Drucker said.

This layer, characterized by many tiny folds and wrinkles, is vital to
breaking down food and abosrbing nutrients into the bloodstream, he said,
adding the length of an intestine isn't as crucial as the surface area of
its lining.

Local researchers recently added to their knowledge about GLP-2 with the
discovery of a key enzyme that regulates and inactivates the hormone.

Their new artificial "designer" version of GLP-2 circumvents the work of
this enzyme, thus making it a superior promoter of intestinal growth.

The findings are published in the journal Nature Biothecnology today.

Allelix Biopharmaceuticals Inc. is working with U of T and Toronto Hospital
toward commercial development of the hormone.


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Ontario, Canada