Thursday, June 28, 2018
In the quest to develop a drug to effectively treat aggressive prostate cancer, NucleoBio Inc. has demonstrated efficacy for its newest product, Prostreat. Prostreat outperforms commercially available medications in inhibiting the growth and spread of the most aggressive form of prostate cancer: metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. Prostreat will be the only drug on the market to utilize new, advanced technology to inhibit the growth and spread of aggressive prostate cancer.
NucleoBio co-founder Olorunseun Ogunwobi, M.D., Ph.D., developed Prostreat in his laboratory at Hunter College of The City University of New York (CUNY). To measure effectiveness, Prostreat was compared to other widely used medications, Enzalutamide, Abiraterone and Apalutamide for advanced prostate cancer. Findings demonstrate Prostreat's ability to significantly inhibit growth and spread of aggressive prostate cancer that commonly expresses the ARV7 mutant protein, known to lead to drug resistance. In contrast, commercially available therapeutics evaluated in the studies had insignificant therapeutic effect on the drug resistant form of castration-resistant prostate cancer. "We unveiled ineffectiveness in current therapies for this type of cancer and identified voids," said NucleoBio co-founder and CEO, Charles Oyesile, M.D., Ph.D. "With the support of CUNY, we leveraged the latest advances in cancer research to create Prostreat, which outperformed current therapeutics in side-by-side laboratory tests."
Dedicated to studying and testing new treatment methods for cancer for over a decade, the NucleoBio team concluded its preliminary product testing of Prostreat on animals in New York in March 2018. Dr. Ogunwobi, who led the research, utilized synthetic analogs of microRNAs to create Prostreat. "We created synthetic analogs of specific microRNAs that we identified from our research, and have demonstrated their superior anti-tumor and anti-metastatic properties in aggressive metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, as compared to commercially utilized drugs," Dr. Ogunwobi said. "This type of technology is relatively new, and to my knowledge, there is no other synthetic microRNA analog that is used in the treatment of prostate cancer."
Enzalutamide, Abiraterone and Apalutamide, regarded as second-generation drugs, are currently the most effective medications available. Although this generation of drugs benefit certain patient populations, unintended side effects and drug resistance are significant concerns for other patient populations. In toxicology studies to date, no toxic side effects have been identified for Prostreat in animals. NucleoBio will commence Prostreat clinical trials to demonstrate safety in a small group of patients Fall 2018.
Findings that demonstrate Prostreat's ability to inhibit the proliferation, migration, growth, and metastasis of prostate tumors will be submitted to a high impact, peer reviewed journal later in 2018. In addition, Dr. Ogunwobi will be presenting these findings at the European Association for Cancer Research in Amsterdam, June 30 - July 3, 2018.
Many times men become aware of prostate cancer when it has advanced and the symptoms are prominent. The risk of death significantly increases when the cancer has spread to the patients' lymph nodes, bones, and other parts of the body. There is a key patient population Prostreat will target, especially as these patients require a therapeutic that is rapidly effective and does not develop resistance.
In parallel, the team is simultaneously developing one other advanced molecular therapeutic.
