Application
- Immunotherapy (IT) is a type of treatment that harnesses the body’s immune system to fight against diseases, particularly cancer. Many IT treatments and their combinations are available and approved in the clinic, however, resistance mechanisms are evoked, and many patients still die from their disease.
- Cathepsins are a group of enzymes that play a crucial role in protein degradation and turnover within cells. They are primarily found in lysosomes, which are cellular compartments involved in the breakdown of various molecules. Cathepsins are responsible for the degradation of proteins, including those involved in cell signaling, extracellular matrix remodeling, and immune responses.
- Cathepsins have been implicated in several aspects of tumor progression, invasion, and metastasis.
Our Innovation
This technology suggests novel methodologies to detect IT resistant patients and means of novel combination treatments to potentiate IT, based on our finding that cathepsin activity is elevated in tumor tissue from melanoma patients and animal models that are resistant to immunotherapy (IT).
Advantages
- Combining IT treatment with cathepsin inhibition results in significantly smaller tumors and increased survival
- New non-cell permeable cathepsin inhibitor, either conjugated or not to a targeting moiety, and its therapeutic use for cancer therapy.
Opportunity
- The suggested technology will provide new tools for treating cancer patients who develop resistance to available drugs. Our unique approach uses novel small molecules, that we previously developed, that report upon cathepsin activity, and a novel specific targeted cathepsin inhibitor.
- We believe the proposed technology can be an interesting fit for companies developing alternative MOAs for cancer treatment. [it’s a combination therapy, so not necessarily needs novel MOAs]
