The Science behind how Oncoprev™ Works
Savoy Pharmaceuticals has developed a highly specific monoclonal
antibody for the safe, effective treatment of cancer that selectively
targets diseased, cancerous tissue while leaving normal tissue unharmed.
This revolutionary discovery is a major step in the war against
cancer and we expect our products to increase the life expectancy
and improve the quality of life for cancer patients.
Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United
States, killing more that 550,000 people per year. Current
cancer treatments not only have serious adverse side effects,
but also fall far short of achieving acceptable cure rates.
According to the American Cancer Society the current 5-year
survival rate for all cancers is approximately 60%, and the
mortality rate has remained virtually unchanged since 1950.
The approach that Savoy Pharmaceuticals uses to treat cancer
is called immunotherapy, which is a relatively
new approach to cancer therapy using antibodies that have
been specially made to specifically recognize cancerous cells
and leave normal cells unharmed. Normally, our immune system
performs its job remarkably well. Unfortunately many cancer
cells tend to go unnoticed by the immune system because they
originate from normal body cells. Despite the fact that they
behave like foreign organisms within our bodies, cancer cells
often do not elicit a significant immune response.
Antibodies
are large molecules produced by white blood cells (B-lymphocytes)
of the immune system (See Figure 1). Their function is to
recognize and attach themselves to foreign cells and material
harmful to our bodies, thereby marking them out for other
components of the immune system to destroy. Humans makes billions
of different types of antibodies, each designed to bind to
a specific surface feature (the epitope or antigenic determinant)
on the foreign body (the antigen).
A
century ago, Paul Ehrlich proposed that antibodies could be
used as "magic bullets" to target and destroy human diseases
(See Figure 2). Antibodies are the most commonly pursued type
of cancer therapeutic today since they combine specificity
(the ability to discriminate diverse harmful molecules) and
affinity (the ability to tightly lock onto those targets)
with the ability to recruit effector functions of the immune
system such as complement-mediated cytolysis (CDC) and antibody-dependent
cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC).
One
way that antibodies are able to kill cancer cells is by activating
the complement system, which consists of a series of proteins
that work to "complement" the work of antibodies in destroying
cancer cells. Complement proteins circulate in the blood in
an inactive form. The so-called "complement cascade" is set
off when the first complement molecule, C1, encounters antibody
bound to antigen in an antigen-antibody complex. Each of the
complement proteins performs its specialized job in turn,
acting on the molecule next in line. The end product is a
cylinder that punctures the cell membrane and, by allowing
fluids and molecules to flow in and out, destroys the target
cell (See Figure 3).
Another way that antibodies target cancer cells for destruction
is by activating the effector or killer cells of the immune
system. Cancer cells are not easy to detect by your immune
system. Oncoprev works by acting as a biological "flag" to
proteins which are only on the surface of cancer cells. This
makes it easier for your immune system to find the cancer
cells and destroy them. This process is called biological
response therapy or immunotherapy. The treatment acts by stimulating
your body's own ability to destroy cancer cells instead of
relying on more toxic and less specific drugs. Thus Oncoprev
is different and generally has less toxic side effects than
standard chemotherapy.
The
cells involved in ADCC include macrophages, natural killer
cells, and neutrophils, which recognize antibody when it binds
to the surface of cancer cells (See figure 4). In ADCC antibodies
act as the 'kill' signal to the effector cells which kill
the target cell by releasing pore-forming proteins called
perforins, proteolytic enzymes called granzymes, and chemokines
. Granzymes pass through the pores and activate the enzymes
that lead to apoptosis, or natural cell death, of the cancer
cell by means of destruction of its structural cytoskeleton
proteins and by chromosomal degradation. As a result, the
cell breaks into fragments that are subsequently removed by
phagocytes. Perforins can also sometimes result in cell lysis.
The process of cell death leads to inflammation, an essential
part of the immune response, and the recruitment of more helper
and effector cells of the immune system including Th and Tc
cells, which cascades into a healthy and complete immune response
to remove all cancerous tissue from the patient. Thus Oncoprev™
rallies the immune system to help it to overcome cancer cells
ability to evade detection, marking them for destruction and
removal by the immune system.
Top
|