On August 13, 2024 Defence Therapeutics Inc. ("Defence" or the "Company"), (CSE: DTC, OTCQB: DTCFF, FSE: DTC), a Canadian biopharmaceutical company developing novel immune-oncology vaccines and drug delivery technologies, reported an update on its Orano Support SAS partnership in the radiopharmaceuticals field, on behalf of Orano SAS ("Orano"), a world-renowned multinational nuclear company, headquartered in France (Press release, Defence Therapeutics, AUG 13, 2024, View Source;utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=defence-therapeutics-collaboration-agreement-with-orano-to-develop-the-next-generation-of-targeted-radio-immunotherapy-for-cancer-advances [SID1234645803]).
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Defence is developing in collaboration with Orano Support SAS, a novel Radio-Immuno-Conjugate ("RIC"), which includes an antibody to deliver the radioactivity specifically to cancer cells, a chelating agent linked to the radionuclide and specific Defence’s Accum variants, resulting in increasing the efficacy to treat cancers. The objective of this project is to develop the next generation of RIC exploiting the therapeutic dependency of Auger electron ("AE") emitter elements in closer proximity to nuclear DNA when combined with Defence’s Accum technology to induce its nuclear accumulation. AE emitters are very promising radionuclides for RIC development because of their very short pathlength radiation energy deposition, which decreases radiotoxicity on healthy tissues.
The Accum moiety can overcome major limitations of RIC e.g. endosomal sequestration and poor nuclear accumulation, by destroying endosome membrane without affecting the plasma membrane nor mAbs specificity and by forcing the nuclear re-localization of the RIC. Defence has developed a multitude of Accum variants with different biochemical properties and activities such as hydrophobicity and cytotoxicity.
Presently, no cancer treatment uses this type of radionuclides in RIC formulation due to the lack of efficacy induced by their endosomal entrapment and their dependency to be close to nuclear DNA. Defence’s objective is to efficiently treat cancers with the potential of opening a new cancer therapy market based on a very promising radiotherapeutics implicating AE emitter radionuclides.
Defence has completed the conceptualization of the Accum variant peptides and secure their production/manufacturing. Defence has showed and patented that some Accum variants can be conjugated to an antibody or an antibody-conjugate to deliver it inside the nucleus. Defence is also pleased to have secured the in vitro and in vivo preclinical studies to be performed by the radiopharmaceuticals scientific team at the Canadian Nuclear Laboratories.