Endor Nanotechnologies –based at the Barcelona Science Park (PCB)– will start Phase II clinical trials on a new innovative treatment for cancer of the pancreas and colon, capable of preventing the tumor from becoming resistant. This new innovative treatment developped by Endor won the Best Biotechnology Product Award 2016 at the European Biotechnology Congress, organized by the European Biotechnology Thematic Network Association (EBTNA) last May in Riga, Latvia Republic.

The therapy has achieved extraordinary levels of efficacy in animal models with cancer of the pancreas and colon. Clinical trials on patients are about to start which will clearly show evidence of the level of effectiveness that this new approach to understanding cancer treatment can achieve.

“Existing cancer therapies have a critical problem that limits their effectiveness: the initial therapeutic response is transient and ultimately defeated by the ability of the tumor to become resistant to treatment. We have developed a technology that overcomes this fundamental limitation”, says Joaquín Querol, founder and CEO of Endor.   

A new therapy to fight cancer

A tumor becomes resistant to treatment because it is capable of changing the characteristics of the cells that make it up. Initially, a large number of cells will be killed by the drugs and treatment will be effective. However, over the course of time, the next generation of tumor cells will have already changed their composition in order to grow resistance to treatment. Thus, the number of resistant cells will become larger and larger and the effectiveness of treatment lower.

Recent studies have also shown that, contrary to what previously assumed, a tumor does not grow in a chaotic and random fashion, but rather follows very specific and well-defined stages.

These discoveries have been crucial for designing new therapies, such as the one Endor has developed, a treatment capable of blocking these growth stages, prompting tumor arrest and cell death.

“The radical innovation of this new treatment is that it does not act on the biological properties of tumor cells, which are those that mutate from one generation to another, generating drug resistance. The treatment acts on the form through which the tumor grows, which is independent of the biochemical composition of its cells, thereby preventing the tumor to generate resistance. This fact suggests levels of efficiency never seen before”, said Joaquín Querol.

Presently more than 100,000 people worldwide are affected by pancreatic cancer. Life expectancy does not exceed five months on average and is the only type of cancer expected to increase in number of deaths over the next five years, according to the organization Pancreatic Cancer Europe. As for colon cancer, patients affected with the disease exceed 1,500,000 in number. Both types of cancer are a burden for health systems representing more than 45 billion dollars, according to the latest report from Business Insights. 

“We have begun discussions with major pharmaceutical companies to ensure that treatment is available as soon as possible after the good results become available. This also has allowed us to validate our business model”, says Endor´s CEO.