Traditional cytotoxic cancer chemotherapies kill rapidly dividing cancer and normal cells in an indiscriminate manner. ?this leads to significant toxicity in patients being treated. In response to this limitation, a number of targeted therapies were developed to be more selective, including monoclonal antibody-based therapies. For certain cancers, antibodies alone are not sufficiently effective to achieve meaningful clinical benefit. This limitation has led to the development of a new class of agents called antibody drug conjugates?or ADCs. ?These ADCs are comprised of a monoclonal antibody, which is used to target the specific cancer, attached via a linker system to a cell-killing drug.
Endocyte’s proprietary technology platform to create novel small molecule drug conjugates or??SMDC represents a new approach, comparable to ADCs, in its ability to deliver highly active drug payloads in a targeted manner. ?Endocyte’s SMDCs actively target receptors that are over-expressed on diseased cells, relative to healthy cells. This targeted approach is designed to enable the treatment of patients with highly active drugs at greater doses, delivered more frequently, and over longer periods of time than would be possible with the untargeted drug alone.
The company is also developing companion imaging diagnostics for each of the SMDCs they are developing. ?These diagnostic tools are designed to identify patients whose disease over-expresses the target of the therapy and who are therefore more likely to benefit from treatment. This combination of an SMDC with its companion imaging diagnostic is designed to personalize the treatment of patients by delivering effective therapy, selectively to diseased cells, in patients most likely to benefit.
Researchers expect that Endocyte’s ?SMDC technology platform offers a number of potential advantages:
- Small size to better penetrate solid tumors
- Rapid clearance for reduced toxicity
- Companion imaging diagnostics for targeted therapy
- Cost-effective and simple to manufacture
3000 Kent Avenue, Suite A1-100,
West Lafayette, IN, 47906.
Web: Endocyte, Inc.
