Cancer breakthrough opens doors to the business world
A newly developed antibody can save cancer-inflicted bones. The next step is inviting pharmaceutical companies to the table.
Researchers from Finsen Laboratory at Rigshospitalet and BRIC (the Biotech Research and Innovation Centre) at the University of Copenhagen have discovered that cells from primary bone cancer break down bone tissue differently than metastatic bone cancer. By administering treatment with a special antibody, researchers successfully slowed this process and reduced bone resorption by up to 80% in a model of bone cancer in mice.
Researchers cannot take this new discovery all the way to patients on their own, however. The next step is inviting the business community into the project.
“We are at an exciting crossroads, as our results are ready for application in the development of medicines by the pharmaceutical industry. Even though we have already advanced in the project, the results will not make a medical impact on patient treatment until the industry takes our results and redesigns these antibodies in a drug development programme. We have devised a promising strategy and we expect that the pharmaceutical industry will seize this opportunity so that the discovery leads to medical treatment in the future,” says Niels Behrendt, group leader at Finsen Laboratory, Rigshospitalet.
