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November 11, 2024
November 8, 2024
One of the most significant global challenges we face today is cancer. As a leading cause of death worldwide, this disease claimed around 10 million deaths in 2020 alone. If the current trend continues, it is estimated that the number of new cancer incidents per year will reach approximately 29.5 million, and the number of cancer-related deaths per year to 16.4 million by 2040. This forecast highlights the urgent need for effective treatments to combat such a devastating disease.
Significant advancements in immune checkpoint therapies and oncoprotein-targeted therapies have played a vital role in the revolutionization of cancer treatment in the past 20 years, offering new hope and improved outcomes for many patients. However, despite these advances, many types of cancer still pose significant challenges, with low life expectancies for patients due to the lack of effective treatments.
To address this unmet medical need, Dr. Dun Yang established Anticancer Bioscience (ACB), Ltd. in 2016 with a vision to discover and develop new cancer therapies that greatly extend and enhance the lives of patients. By exploring innovative approaches to cancer treatment, ACB is committed to identifying new therapeutics that can overcome current therapies’ limitations and improve patient outcomes.
ACB is a leading precision therapeutics company with its headquarters in Chengdu, China, and research and development teams spread across the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and India. The company is led by a management team with exceptional expertise in cancer and genetic tool innovation, including synthetic lethality and mechanism-informed phenotypic screening.
ACB draws on a combination of medicinal chemistry and western drug discovery approaches while also tapping into the diverse and rich resources of natural plants and products in China. The company is leveraging its innovative natural product libraries, synthetic small molecule libraries, AI-driven virtual molecule libraries, as well as unique screening platforms, to discover new mechanisms for inducing the death of cancer cells while minimizing harm to healthy cells. This will allow ACB to develop breakthrough precision cancer therapies that are safer and more effective. The President & CEO at Anticancer Bioscience, Dr. Dun Yang, explains, “Genetic perturbations that fuel cancer growth can also introduce an over-dependence for the cancer cell on pathways and proteins that are not essential for the normal, non-cancerous cell.
“Anticancer Bioscience was founded by a group of scientists who are skilled in identifying and exploiting cancer vulnerabilities. We have assembled a talented team of medicinal chemists and discovery scientists to capitalize on the opportunities we identify in the oncology space. Our objective is to advance safe, effective, and broad-spectrum targeted therapies for cancers that are not yet treatable or have become refractory to existing therapies.”
ACB is a pioneering oncology company with a long-standing commitment to developing innovative anticancer therapies. The foundation of ACB’s drug pipeline is based on over 20 years of cancer research by its founder, Dr. Dun Yang, under the guidance of Nobel laureate Dr. J. Michael Bishop. ACB’s ultimate goal is to positively impact the lives of cancer patients worldwide by providing first-in-class oncology drugs that target unexplored targets.
To achieve this goal, ACB has adopted a multitasking approach, allowing it to discover and develop drugs for multiple programs and targets simultaneously. This approach has not only boosted productivity, but also drastically reduced lead optimization time. ACB has established five innovative R & D programs, each focused on a specific biological mechanism. By seamlessly integrating multiple tasks in-house, including mechanism-informed phenotypic screening, lead identification and optimization, GUNS-DF library construction, identification of drug targets and their predictive biomarkers, PD/DMPK/Tox, API production, and drug formulation, ACB is able to streamline the drug discovery and development process to advance its programs in the pipeline as efficiently as possible.
ACB’s most advanced program is the MYC-synthetic lethal program, which has yielded multiple series of lead compounds with excellent therapeutic efficacy in preclinical studies and no apparent toxicity. ACB has also developed multiparameter biomarkers that predict favorable treatment responses to these synthetic lethal therapeutics and will be useful in stratifying patients for treatment. Additionally, ACB has discovered PD/TD biomarkers as surrogates of target engagement and inactivation in tumor tissues. What sets ACB’s MYC-synthetic lethal compounds apart is that they disable a target that has not been known to be an MYC-synthetic lethal partner, making them distinct from other MYC-synthetic lethal agents.
Overall, ACB’s innovative approach to cancer therapy and its focus on MYC-overexpressing cancers demonstrates the company’s commitment to developing new and effective treatments for some of the most difficult-to-treat cancers. By using a multitasking approach to drug development and identifying predictive biomarkers, ACB is in a strong position to deliver effective oncology drugs for patients in need.
As a global precision oncology company that is fast-growing and driven by ambitious goals, ACB has achieved several significant milestones, including the development of five series of MYC-synthetic lethal lead compounds that have demonstrated remarkable efficacy in preclinical models. The company has submitted more than 10 PCT filings related to these compounds, as well as their targets and biomarkers. Additionally, multiple compounds in the most advanced lead series have achieved kg-scale production and undergone oral formulation study. These achievements have earned recognition from the scientific community and biopharma/biotech media, including awards and honors such as the 2022 In Vivo Rising Leaders for Dr. Dun Yang and ACB being named a finalist for the China Biopharma Leadership Award by Scrip Awards.
With its cutting-edge drug discovery platforms and innovative approach to cancer therapy, ACB is poised to revolutionize the field of oncology. Its commitment to developing first-in-class drugs for most human cancer patients is unmatched, and the potential impact of its products on the field is unparalleled. As ACB prepares to file an IND in the US for its first MYC-synthetic lethal development candidate, the world is eagerly anticipating the transformative impact this product could have on the lives of cancer patients. With its state-of-the-art drug discovery platforms, ACB is leading the way in the biotech industry.
Pull Quote: “Our mission is to apply our innovative libraries and platforms in cancer biology to discover novel mechanisms to induce cancer cell death without harming healthy cells. Such discovery will enable us to develop breakthrough precision cancer therapies that are not only more effective, but also safer for patients.”
Description of the Company: Anticancer Bioscience (ACB), Ltd. is a precision oncology company and a pioneer in developing synthetic lethal therapies for safer and better cancer treatment. It is headquartered in China with global research and development teams in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and India.
Company Name: Anticancer Bioscience, Ltd.
Founding Year: 2016
Office Locations: Chengdu, China
Official Website of the Company: www.anticancerbio.com
Name of the Featured Leader: Dun Yang
Designation of the Leader: Founder, President & CEO at Anticancer Bioscience
