|
|
| |
| Oncology program |
| home > research > oncology program |
|
Cancer has been a continuing challenge to researchers worldwide. The challenge is complex because cancer proliferation finds newer mechanisms once a pathway restriction is created through drug action.
Given these limitations, the next generation drugs in cancer are expected to have ability to act through multiple pathways, thus delivering a compounded effect restricting cancer proliferation. Our research program aims to attack the manifestation of a particular cancer type through multiple mechanisms, maintaining the side effects to the minimum.
While our oncology program is targeted at several cancer types, having leads at various stages, the immediate focus is on pancreatic cancer where the life expectancy remains very low and treatment options, extremely limited.
Pancreatic cancer proliferates through multiple pathways among which PI3K/Akt/NFkB pathway is very important. Akt is over expressed in most of the pancreatic cancers and its activation confers resistance to current cancer drugs. Further, some of the existing cancer drugs activate NFkB, thereby resisting apoptosis which results in modest clinical outcome for patients with pancreatic cancer. The EGFR inhibitors have also proven effective in pancreatic cancer becuase of EGFR independent activation of Akt and NF-kB through a variety of mechanisms resulting from multigene mutations.
At NovaLead, we believe that a compound which acts through multiple pathways and has a definite Akt inhibitory activity will be a significant improvement over current treatments for pancreatic cancer. VLI27, our lead compound has demonstrated all these characteristics in preclinical studies. Such a compound may be used as monotherapy or as combination therapy with existing drugs. |
| |
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
