What you might have missed this summer: exciting fundings in cancer combination therapy
When fighting a disease as genetically diverse and mutation-prone as cancer, administering a single-drug therapy, also known as monotherapy, simply doesn’t work. In fact, when applying a selective pressure from a single drug in patients with solid tumors, most evolve to become resistant in as little as a few months.
The solution is cleverly simple: simultaneously treat tumors with multiple drugs that target different pathways. This strategy, known as combination therapy, has been proven successful in aggressive diseases such as HIV’s HAART treatment, and the combined treatment of Abraxane and gemcitabine has FDA approval for pancreatic cancer. Combination therapy with two simultaneous drugs has been shown to be far more effective than sequential therapy and offers lower treatment failure rate, slower development of resistance, and fewer side-effects than monotherapy. Recently, two companies secured funding for their work in the field of cancer combination therapy and are of large interest towards the future of this field.
In April 2015, Presage Biosciences published a biotech platform that has the ability to simultaneously test multiple therapeutic agents within a patient’s tumor, called the CIVO platform (http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/7/284/284ra58) Last month, Presage closed their Series D financing a total equity raised to $26M. The CIVO platform pioneers their approach in FDA-approved phase zero trials where combination therapies can be microdosed intratumorally in patients to skip the time and costs associated with phase 1 clinical trials. The injector pairs each drug candidate with fluorescent tracking microspheres. After a set amount of time, the tumor is surgically removed and analyzed using biomarkers to gauge synergistic mechanisms of the different combinations. This technology has incredible potential for testing experimental drugs in a human tumor environment and immune system without the traditional toxicity associated with larger, untested doses.
Earlier this month, NED Biosystems raised over $2M towards its Series B round of financing for its planned Phase II trial of NED-170, a combination treatment targeting 5 cancer-driving processes associated with all advanced solid tumor cancers. Specifically, its components hit the immune masking processes, reduces angiogenesis, inhibits cancer stem cells, reduces hyperactive metabolism, and reenables apoptosis. (https://nedbiosystems.com/ned-170/science/) In a 26 patient study, no safety or tolerability issues had been reported, though the study lacked the rigor of a randomized, double-blind clinical trial.
These fundings demonstrate continuing industry support for this appealing approach to cancer treatment. Looking toward the future, as more immunotherapeutic agents hit the market, combination therapies that include immunotherapies with pharmaceutical agents will offer a greater range of benefits over previous generations. (https://academic.oup.com/annonc/article/29/1/84/4693829)
Emory Entrepreneurship & Venture Management
