Jun 11 2009
Cancer Therapeutics, Inc. (OTCBB: CTHP), a biotechnology business incubator, with a specific emphasis on disruptive treatments and nanotechnology, announced today its new partner, NanoTherapies, Inc., is utilizing calcium phosphate nanoparticles to detect and treat cancer. These particles are about 350 times smaller than a human cell while providing both a safe and effective way to transport drugs and imaging materials into diseased cells.
NanoTherapies has sole license and patent protection for the fundamental use of calcium phosphate nanoparticles in medical applications for the treatment and detection of blood cancers (all forms of leukemia). NanoTherapies has all rights to manufacturing technologies and intellectual property required to produce pharmaceutical quality drugs at the scale and yield needed for commercial viability.
Calcium phosphate is a major component of bones. NanoTherapies' calcium phosphate NanoJackets clear the kidneys and liver without impact. They exit the body via the colon, and their chemical properties enable them to circulate in the bloodstream for prolonged periods yet dissolve in diseased cells, thereby releasing the drug. Metallic, silicon and carbon based nanoparticles cannot make the same claims regarding biocompatibility for humans nor do they have the chemical or physical properties that allow effective drug release in diseased cells.
Patient benefits from drugs jacketed with calcium phosphate nanoparticles are immense. Early lab studies show a ten-fold reduction in toxicity with a seven-fold increase in effectiveness for drugs delivered using NT's technology. This means dramatically reduced side-effects owing to the severe toxicity of cancer drugs and increased effectiveness because the half-life of the drug is increased from minutes to hours. Most cancer drugs kill all the cells they contact and dissipate in less than thirty minutes. NT's nanojackets encapsulate the drugs for up to thirty hours before being cleared from the body or until the nanoparticle enters a cancerous cell and release the drug. NT's technology moves drug delivery strategies from carpet-bombing to smart-bombing with the corresponding dramatic decrease in collateral damage.
In the same way NT's nanoparticles deliver drugs to cancerous cells they can also transport imaging dyes that fluoresce under near infrared light to reveal cancerous cells. Imaging cancer at the cellular level enables new methods of early detection of cancer as well as post-treatment and post-operative evaluation.