Medpacto’s research team has developed a novel way to decrease the size of a drug down to nanoparticles and encapsulate it to penetrate the pancreatic cancer tissue easier.
The company’s size-switchable nanosystem is designed to deliver two different drugs sequentially for enhanced chemotherapy in cancers.
The study conducted by Medpacto showed that administering a combination of transforming growth factor-beta 1 (TGF beta-1) inhibitor Vactosertib and pancreatic cancer therapy paclitaxel with the company’s nanosystem improved therapeutic effect in pancreatic cancer.
When administered with the combination drug using the nanosystem, Vactosertib first acts and makes it easier for paclitaxel to penetrate cancer tissues and effectively attack cancer cells, enhancing the therapeutic effect.
The company said its technology could be used for other cancers, providing new treatment methods for patients with early-stage cancer and those who do not have alternative options.
The research team put two small nanoparticles, each containing Vactosertib and paclitaxel, into the nanosystem and encapsulated them so that the drug-specific chain reaction could occur when it reaches cancer cells. Researchers also attached EDB (extra domain B) peptides to the surface of the nanocapsule to allow the encapsulated drugs to only target the pancreatic cancer tissue.
Medpacto expects the mechanism to dramatically treat pancreatic patients who show low response rate, recurrence, and drug resistance.
Pancreatic cancer is an intractable disease with a low response rate to chemotherapy. In addition, anticancer drugs have a hard time reaching the cancer cells due to the thick and hard extracellular matrix surrounding cancer.
“Our recent study results demonstrated again that Vactosertib, a TGF-beta inhibitor, can further enhance the treatment effect in various cancers that are difficult to treat when administered in combination with existing anti-cancer therapies,” Medpacto CEO Kim Seong-jin said. “We believe the study to find the mechanism of nanosystems will attract attention as a treatment that might maximize the therapeutic effect of existing drugs.”
The study results, organized by Medpacto CEO Kim and Professor Guangjun Nie of China’s National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, were published in the September issue of the American Chemical Society Nano.