Inhibitors of cancer-mediated bone destruction

Summary
Current drugs for bone metastases merely prevent and slow the breakdown of bone, but are ineffective in slowing the spread of cancer. The current technology is a dual-acting bone defender (DABD), which acts to prevent bone destruction while simultaneously attacking cancer’s ability to spread.

Technology Overview
In many cancers, especially prostate, breast and lung, a primary site of metastasis is bone.  Approximately 280,000 adults in US currently have metastatic bone disease and each year an additional 323,000 cancers at high-risk for bone metastasis are diagnosed. This causes bone to break down and become diseased, leading to pain, fractures, complex hospital treatments and significant reduction in quality of life.
The current technology, termed dual-acting bone defenders (DABDs), stop the worsening cycle of bone metastasis by linking two functional compounds that simultaneously protect bones from cancer-induced degradation and prevent metastasis by inhibiting cancer cell motility. Features of DABDs include:

• New chemical composition, which combines anti-metastatic agent KBU2046¹ and bone-protecting agent zoledronic acid (ZA).
• Ability to reduce bone destruction, maintain bone density and prolong survival in a murine model of prostate cancer.
• Potential impact to decrease pain and improve quality of life for patients, extend patient survival and reduce healthcare costs from skeletal-related events such as bone fractures and spinal compression. 

Publications
¹ Xu et al., “Precision therapeutic targeting of human cancer cell motility.” Nature Communications 9(2018):2454.

Zhang et al., “A multifunctional therapy approach for cancer: targeting Raf1-mediated inhibition of cell motility, growth and interaction with the microenvironment.” Molecular Cancer Therapeutics 19(2020).

Licensing Opportunity
This technology is available for licensing.