Cancer Metabolism

Today's prevailing approaches to treating cancer are mainly killing tumor cells using cytotoxic agents, radiation (chemotherapy and radiotherapy), or blocking growth signals through targeted therapy using kinase inhibitors or antibodies. Recently, a new approach for battling cancer has been proposed - targeting cancer cells' fundamental survival mechanisms by modulating the metabolism of cancer cells.

Since Otto Warburg's observation in the 1920s, it has been known that there are metabolic differences between rapidly-proliferating cancer cells and normal cells. The Warburg Effect says that cancer cells metabolize at a much different rate than normal cells. Recent research has demonstrated that these metabolic differences are actual drivers of tumor growth. By modulating their metabolic processes, cancer cells are able to divert sugars, fats and other energy sources away from energy production to satisfy the ever growing demands of uncontrolled proliferation.

Drugs that intervene with the metabolism of cancer cells, redirecting them to the normal metabolic course, could present a completely new way for treating cancer, either as a monotherapy or in combination with other therapeutic approaches.

Dynamix Pharmaceuticals is at the leading edge of biotech companies that are pioneering this new and promising approach.

Dynamix has two drug programs that target cancer metabolism. Its lead programs targets PKM2, an enzyme that is a key mediator of cancer metabolism (DNX-03000), with a second program targeting a yet undisclosed target (DNX-06000).