NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — An international partnership is the latest approach to fight treatment-resistant breast cancers.
LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine, the University of Rochester and Cellestia Biotech AG have collaborated to prove that an investigational oral drug, paired with standard-of-care medications, can revert hormone resistance and increase Rx effectiveness in estrogen-receptor positive and triple-negative breast cancers.
This form of breast cancer is said to be an aggressive subtype that accounts for 15 to 25% of all diagnoses. Within the first three years of being diagnosed, patients have a two-to-three times higher risk of recurrence and death, according to health officials.
Cellestia is the inventor of CB-103, a small molecule Notch inhibitor that relays information from the cell surface to the genes. The LSU Health team says they believe the compound should be safe and effective in hormone-resistant estrogen-receptor-positive breast cancers.
“Over the past two decades, various drugs targeting the Notch signaling axis have been investigated. CB-103 is a next-generation, orally active, clinical-stage drug that, unlike older drugs, directly targets gene regulation by Notch and offers a much-improved toxicity profile,” noted senior author Lucio Miele, MD, Ph.D., Professor and Chair of Genetics and Assistant Dean for Translational Science at LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine.
LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine Assistant Professor of Genetics Samarpan Majumder added that CB-103 is reported to be safe and well-tolerated causing minimal gastrointestinal toxicity.
Health officials say despite the latest advancements in treatment, endocrine resistance still occurs and that second and third-line therapies are either moderately or minimally effective.
TNBC is said to disproportionally affect young premenopausal women of African American descent.
Majumder says the presented data will serve as a foundation for planned clinical trials.
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