New cancer treatment platforms show promising results in targeting metastasis

A new study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology has found that the overall survival and progression-free survival rates for patients with solid cancer indications have increased by 1.97-4.60 months and 1.50-5.58 months respectively, despite 124 FDA-approved drugs being available for treatment. This lack of progress in cancer treatment is primarily due to current treatments focusing on treating secondary tumors of metastatic cancer, rather than the process of metastasis, which causes 90 percent of cancer deaths.

To address this issue, a team of researchers led by Arnab Roy Chowdhury, PhD, the Founder and Director of a cancer research company, have developed several innovative platforms that aim to better understand and target the process of metastasis in cancer treatment. These platforms include METAssayTM, METSCANTM, and METVivoTM.

The METAssayTM platform utilizes 30 cellular assays to dissect the differences between growing tumor cells and metastasizing tumor cells across the complete metastatic pathway. This allows researchers to gain a deeper understanding of the underlying biology of cancer metastasis and helps identify potential novel therapeutic targets.

The METSCANTM platform is an extension of the METAssayTM platform, but also incorporates data from patient samples, thereby intergating the translational relevance. METSCANTM comes with an algorithm that can help predict the metastatic potential of primary tumours to metastasize, pilot clinical trial on which is currently ongoing.

The METVivoTM platform is a time-sensitive animal model that provides faster turnaround and more robust results. The model mimics the human disease more closely, allowing researchers to test the most promising therapeutic candidates in a more realistic setting.

These platforms have already shown promising results in a case study, where 2 hits were progressed for multiple patient sample translational analysis and resulted in excellent in vivo efficacy in reducing metastasis without affecting tumor size. The team also conducted a retrospective study that showed the potential clinical relevance of repurposing existing drugs for the treatment of metastasis; where rank ordering of retro-clinical study of drugs matched with the METASSAYTM rank ordering.

Chowdhury states that his team is capable of helping position anti-cancer leads/candidates for metastasis, picking the best compounds from any library with anti-metastasis activity, and repurposing approved drugs for the treatment of metastasis. Their current work is around colorectal, head and neck and triple negative breast tumours, but they can also customize their platform for understanding the biology of other tissue-specific cancer and their metastasis.

The study highlights the urgent need for new strategies to target the process of metastasis in cancer treatment and the potential of the platforms developed by Chowdhury and his team in addressing this issue. Chowdhury’s team is confident that their innovative approach will pave the way for the development of new drugs and therapies that can improve the survival and quality of life of cancer patients.