Summer is officially here, and so is the gun show.
Not talking about Sean Astin, who plays Drew Barrymore’s steroid abuser brother from 50 First Dates – “it’s not juice it’s a protein shake” (lol) – and his ilk, but rather multitargeted molecular shotguns like RRx-001 and AdAPT-001.
AdAPT-001 is targeted against the tumor cells themselves and transforming growth factor beta (TGFβ), an overexpressed protein or cytokine that impacts antitumor immunity, angiogenesis, epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) and fibrosis. These broad anticancer properties likely explain why – and how – AdAPT-001 manages to sensitize “cold”, checkpoint inhibitor resistant tumors like sarcomas to checkpoint inhibitors that these same tumors previously failed.
RRx-001 (nibrozetone), a nitric oxide (NO) donor only under poorly oxygenated conditions, is targeted against pro-tumor and pro-endometriosis macrophages in cancer and endometriosis and against the inflammatory protein complex, the NLRP3 inflammasome. Like AdAPT-001, this cytotoxic and anti-inflammatory multifunctionality explains the broad-spectrum activity of RRx-001 not only against cancer and endometriosis, but also against chemoradiation-induced severe oral mucositis, for which clinical trials are either ongoing or about-to-start, and progressive neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS/MND, and Parkinson’s Disease.
We’re all about flexing these two guns, AdAPT-001 and RRx-001 (nibrozetone), this summer and all year round – hopefully for the benefit of patients with different diseases of unmet medical need across the world.