Clinical stage biopharmaceutical company Rexahn Pharmaceuticals has in-licensed oncology drug delivery platform, Nano-Polymer-Drug Conjugate Systems (NPDCS), from the University of Maryland, Baltimore.
The technology is designed to directly deliver chemotherapeutic agents into cancerous tumors resulting in increased efficacy and reduced toxicity.
By combining the existing chemotherapeutic agents with a proprietary polymer carrier, containing a signaling moiety that directs the drug into the tumor, the NPDCS platform minimizes the levels of freely circulating anti-cancer agents in the body.
RX-21101, a polymer conjugated form of docetaxel, is the Rexahn’s first drug candidate developed utilizing the novel platform.
University of Utah departments of pharmaceutics and pharmaceutical chemistry and bioengineering professor Dr. Hamid Ghandehari and co-developer of the NPDCS technology said the NPDCS platform represents a significant advancement in targeted delivery of chemotherapeutic agents directly to cancer tumors.
"Other approaches have not been able to combine the controlled, targeted release of existing chemotherapeutic directly to the cancerous tumor," Ghandehari added.
Rexahn chief executive officer Peter Suzdak said, "The NPDCS platform complements our three clinical stage compounds with a lower risk approach that maximizes efficacy while reducing the adverse events associated with existing anti-cancer agents."