By the year 2022, thousands of APIs (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients) were developed and approved to treat different diseases, yet not even one efficient technology was approved to deliver these different API precisely to their target tissues! Developing a targeted delivery platform will benefit these APIs by improving their efficacy and reducing their toxicity. It will broaden their treatable indications, improve their results and allow them renewed patent rights. "Traditional” delivery methods, such as Injections or tablets deliver only a small percentage of their original doses to the tissues requiring treatment, and instead, most of the dose arrives to healthy tissue causing severe toxicity. Current Drug Delivery Platforms (DDPs) such as liposomes or polymers face the same efficiency problem, not offering the possibility to target specific body tissues affected by a disease. On the other hand, Targeted Therapies such as monoclonal antibodies, target only an affected protein, but are costly and generally amenable to a small proportion of patients bearing the specific protein for which the treatment is directed. Efforts to develop Targeted Drug Delivery Platforms (T-DDPs) that overcome these limitations resulted in little success to date, creating a substantial unmet need. The logical way to design such delivery platforms is to rely on a programmable / customizable technology incorporating components that can be found in living organisms and providing the possibility to be programmed to perform the following tasks described above.
THE SOLUTION: S.M.A.R.T a Stimuli Multi Adjusted Responsive nano Technology and PCPM platform which combines two cutting edge research fields (Patents already approved in EU and US):
The S.M.A.R.T platform allows the necessary versatility to design and assemble a customizable targeted delivery systems with the capacity to treat a myriad of diseases, provided we identify the disease's “molecular fingerprint”, defined as the set of variables or molecular changes that makes it unique to the rest of the patient's body.
The overall objective of SMARTRIOX project is to develop TXN770 as better treatment options for Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC).
TNBC is the most aggressive type of breast cancer, accounting for 15-25% of all Breast Cancer cases: yearly over 200,000 women are diagnosed worldwide, half of which are diagnosed with metastatic disease at the time of primary diagnosis (see figure). To date there is no EFFECTIVE treatment for TNBC, because it is hormone independent (Oestrogen and Progesterone), and does not express the mutated form of human EGF receptors (HER2), meaning the targeted therapy Herceptin and its derivatives cannot be used, similar to hormone therapies10. The current treatment options for these patients are far from being considered standard-of-care, with only highly toxic and rather ineffective therapies which, represent an excessive economic burden for National Health Services: Associated costs of €75 billion . Current guidelines for TNBC treatment heavily rely on "primitive" chemotherapy agents such as Anthracyclines Taxanes and their combinations.
