The drug, BPM 31510 reprograms the metabolism of cancer cells and teaches them to undergo cell death. It will soon be subjected to clinical trials for pancreatic cancer.
Berg, a small Boston-based biotech firm, teams up with a group of hospitals and research teams to discover and treat pancreatic cancer by means of a clinical biomarker. Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest forms of the disease, with an average five-year survival rate. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital and the Pancreatic Cancer Research Team (PCRT), will join hands to find a biomarker for pancreatic cancer.
Finding a cure for pancreatic cancer and other aggressive types of cancers in not the priority of most well established pharmaceutical companies. Instead, large pharmaceutical companies tend to focus their research and development dollars on rare diseases, where profit margins are extremely high and finding a cure for cancer is really tough.
Berg’s first drug, BPM 31510, reprograms the metabolism of the cancer cells, re-teaching them to undergo apoptosis, or cell death. The cancer cells die off naturally, without the need for harmful and expensive chemotherapy.
The company has plans to use data and artificial intelligence algorithms, to isolate the root causes of many diseases, including cancer, and develop tailor-made treatment options for patients.
Source-Medindia