Pharma, Startups

Cancer drug firm says hormones produced in the heart have serious tumor-fighting potential

While many existing therapies for cancer aim at killing cancer cells that already exist, Kalos […]

While many existing therapies for cancer aim at killing cancer cells that already exist, Kalos Therapeutics is taking a different approach that it thinks could someday be used to complement these therapies. It’s leveraging the properties of a family of hormones produced in the heart that regulate muscle cell proliferation, blood pressure and cell growth. The company’s drug is designed to raise the levels of those peptides to slow tumor growth without the toxic side effects associated with chemotherapeutic or small molecule compounds.

The company is targeting a $3.5 million series A round to finish the preclinical work it hopes will give way to a Big Pharma development partnership.

Co-founder and Chairman George Colberg said that when Kalos formed, it looked at hundreds of compounds that had been in trials with good results, and found one it liked in atrial natriuretic peptides. Colberg said the naturally occurring peptides had been studied in a number of different indications, from heart disease to kidney treatments, with some very early work in cancer.

“The heart has muscles that are constantly working but don’t get bigger, and we rarely see cancer in the heart, so we started honing in on this fact,” Colberg said. “These peptides control cardiac remodeling so the heart doesn’t grow out of your chest.” That idea, combined with the fact that cancer is characterized by the rapid growth of cells, presented the opportunity that Kalos was looking for.

“We take this natural substance, synthesize it, raise it to therapeutic levels and use it to control cell growth and fluid,” Colberg said.

The team has spent the past four years deconstructing the science behind the peptide and simplifying a chain of 126 amino acids down to a 36-amino acid chain. Colberg said the Kalos team is continuing to work toward a shorter chain that will make the drug more stable and easier to manufacture.

In preclinical models, they’ve found that it’s worked well across nine different cancer cell lines including ovarian, breast, lung and brain cancers. But Kalos’ first target for commercialization will be pancreatic cancer, an increasingly prominent and particularly deadly kind of cancer. It’s tough to treat because there aren’t a lot of early symptoms, and diagnosis is usually made late, Colberg said.

Kalos is hoping its cytostatic approach to treatment would not only halt tumor growth but also eliminate many of the harmful side effects associated with existing cytotoxic therapies like chemotherapy. However, it’s also studied its drug in animals in combination with standard of care therapies and found that it produced the most significant tumor shrinkage when used this way.

Colberg said he’s hoping the small series A will carry the company through its IND-enabling work, and the data produced from that work will help the company secure one of the big pharmaceutical companies he’s been talking with as a partner.

Further down the line, the San Diego-based company  thinks ANP may have applications in other diseases including adult macular degeneration.

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