Empowered Patient Podcast Multi-Target Approach Using Chemotherapy Drug Combo Shows Potential Across Cancer Types with Jeff Glazier General Oncology
Jeff Glazier, CEO of General Oncology, is taking a unique approach to treating cancer by using older chemotherapy drugs with broad action but in novel combinations designed to avoid the incidental toxicity. Their primary drug in trials is GO-4 which is focused on shutting down DNA repair in cancer cells to overcome drug resistance. While testing in patients with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, this approach was designed to combat tumor heterogeneity by targeting fundamental processes like proliferation that are common to all cancer cells within a tumor.
Jeff explains, "We're actually taking a different approach than a lot of companies are. And I would say there are really two approaches because we have two different things on, we have a clinical trial right now where we're using old chemotherapy drugs in a new way, and when you combine them together, you really get just a different result. We're trying to shut down DNA repair and kill cancer cells. But the other really interesting thing, and I think it’s underlying general vision, is chemotherapy drugs long ago had very broad action, and with broad action comes unwanted incidental toxicity. And over the years, it's been huge in the industry, or moving towards specific drugs that target specific things and have less incidental toxicity. The unfortunate side effect is that cancer cells can evolve around a drug if there's too much specificity. So we're taking a pretty novel approach with our business of going after drugs that have broad action, but we found a way, we believe, to do it in a way that doesn't have incidental toxicity."
"I certainly feel that you want to have more than one attack. If you only do one, the cancer cells can evolve around it. The drug resistance approach I was referring to was what we call GO-4 in our clinical trial, and we're altering part of the cancer cells’ fundamental biology that is involved in DNA repair and shutting it down. But we're doing it in more than one way."
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