Building a NEW Cancer Therapy
Pacylex is a Canadian oncology company exploiting a new discovery in cancer biology which may explain how some cancers arise from normal cells. The company is developing a first in class, small molecule, oral chemotherapeutic, PCLX-001, to exploit this cancer mechanism by turning on selective lethality, apoptosis, in these cancer cells. Animal tests show this drug candidate completely eliminates tumors in 4 different animal models of blood cancers (leukemias and lymphomas). PCLX-001 also kills many solid tumor cancer cell lines and retards tumor growth in some animal models of lung and breast cancer.
Long-term survival of patients with lymphoma and especially leukemia is poor. The lymphoma market is ~$5B with few new therapies. The leukemia market is transitioning from generic chemotherapy to new branded therapies and is expected to grow dramatically in the next decade to >$1.9B. Oncology is the area of greatest pharmaceutical company interest and this summer, Pacylex was accepted into the first class of 4 companies in the new Merck-sponsored Accelerator in Edmonton, and is pursuing the investment and experiments necessary to begin investigations in patients.
