After 10 years of painstaking research, the original preclinical small molecule new drugs jointly developed by the research team of East China Normal University and Fudan University in the field of anti-tumor cachexia and muscle enhancement have recently reached a total of 100 million US dollars in global equity cooperation with international biopharmaceutical companies. The new oral small-molecule drug developed by the research team can block the pathways involved in the occurrence of tumor cachexia, reduce muscle atrophy, improve grip strength, and alleviate the symptoms of tumor cachexia.
"The occurrence of tumor cachexia not only weakens the effect of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, shortens the survival period of cancer patients, but also seriously affects the quality of life of patients." Zhang Xiongwen, a professor at the Shanghai Molecular Therapy and New Drug Development Engineering Research Center of East China Normal University, said in an interview on the 3rd that tumor cachexia is a major complication in patients with various malignant tumors, and its clinical characteristics are muscle atrophy and fat degradation leading to significant weight loss in patients, and multiple organ failure and death in the later stages of the disease. "50% to 80% of patients with malignant tumors will develop tumor cachexia when they enter the advanced stage of the disease, which is also the main cause of death for many cancer patients." "Once cachexic atrophy occurs, the survival hope and quality of life of patients will be seriously threatened, and the effect of chemotherapy and radiotherapy will be weakened," Zhang said.
It is understood that before entering East China Normal University, Zhang Xiongwen had been engaged in the development of tumor targeting drugs for a long time in pharmaceutical companies. He found that tumor targeting drugs are generally only for a single tumor treatment, and targeted drugs will develop resistance to a certain stage of use, and it is necessary to constantly iterate. Therefore, Zhang Xiongwen believes that through the treatment of tumor complications and improve the quality of life of tumor patients, in order to better benefit tumor patients.
In the past ten years, Zhang Xiongwen, who entered East China Normal University to carry out pharmacological research, led a research group to conduct long-term exploration of the pathogenesis, new target exploration and drug treatment of tumor cachexia, and successively screened and evaluated the alleviating effect and mechanism of a variety of small molecule compounds, traditional Chinese medicine and its active ingredients on tumor cachexia muscle atrophy.
Compared with traditional macromolecular antibody drugs with high production cost and strict transportation and storage conditions, small molecule drugs are more suitable for oral administration, with convenient transportation and storage, good stability, and high membrane permeability, and the cost is much lower than that of traditional macromolecular antibody drugs, which is conducive to improving the accessibility of drugs.
It is understood that in order to promote the smooth implementation of relevant major transformation projects, East China Normal University is equipped with results transformation specialists, open up green channels for approval, and relevant functional departments cooperate to build a closed framework for the whole process of "one thing at a time", and efficiently complete the entire transformation procedures.
At present, Zhang Xiongwen's research team is still actively promoting the research and development of preclinical new drugs for the treatment of tumor cachexia. In addition to the successful transformation project, the team also designed, synthesized, screened and evaluated the anti-tumor cachexia effect and mechanism of small molecule compounds with different targets, and studied and evaluated the alleviative effect and mechanism of traditional Chinese medicine and its active ingredients on tumor cachexia muscle atrophy.
