Therapeutics
The Need for Radiation Sensitizers
Radiation Oncology has gone through transformative technological innovation over the last decade to better define tumors, allow improved shaping of radiation delivery and support dose escalation with shorter, more intensive courses of treatment. Furthermore, achieving higher dose distributions within tumor volumes has reached a practical plateau, since cancers are frequently integrated with or surrounded by more sensitive normal tissues and further dose escalation increases risks of tissue necrosis.
A Critical Gap in Care
The current standard of care consists of chemotherapy agents, used “off-label.” These drugs have inherent toxicities since they were designed for direct cancer treatments and not for sensitization. However, the clinical value of using radiation sensitizing drugs in combination with radiation therapy has been demonstrated in a variety of cancer types, including gynecological, gastro-intestinal, pulmonary and other malignancies.
Safer Sensitizers. Smarter Diagnostics.
There is a critical need for new drugs that preferentially sensitize cancer cells to radiation therapy and that stimulate the innate immune response against irradiated cancer cells. Furthermore, to advance precision medicine in radiation oncology, there is a need for imaging and molecular diagnostic tests for determining the extent of cancer spread in the body and for predicting clinical responses to therapy.