Delivering precision in cancer R&D with Optimer?

Cancer remains a mammoth challenge, accounting for one in every six deaths globally. Despite the scale of the challenge, over the past years, we have made huge leaps in our understanding of cancer as well as in delivering better ways of fighting it. As we drive towards personalised medicines, the precision in cancer treatments, trials, and patient monitoring is improving, meaning more effective solutions without side effects.

Optimer binders, as oligonucleotide antibody alternatives, are offering innovative ways to address cancer, from identifying new cancer biomarkers to delivering better treatments. Here we take a look at how Optimer technology is changing the landscape of cancer research in ways both expected and surprising.

Delivering precision chemotherapy

Just like antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) that deliver highly potent cancer-killing drugs directly to the cancer cells using a targeted antibody, Optimer-drug conjugates can precisely target chemotherapy for new cancer treatments. By delivering chemotherapy drugs directly to the inside of cancerous cells, this approach to cancer treatment prevents damage to nearby healthy cells, potentially reducing treatment side effects. ?

Optimer gives precise control of drug-Optimer ratios through simple chemical modifications, allowing tuneable dosing for the best therapeutic effects. Also, the half-lives of these delivery reagents can be simply tuned to meet rapid hit-and-run strategies or give longer in vivo half-lives as needed.

Being smaller than antibodies, Optimer-drug conjugates can penetrate deeper into solid tumours than antibodies for improved delivery, inhibition and more effective treatment. Also, as Optimer are oligonucleotide-based ligands, they are less immunogenic than antibodies, allowing repeat dosing of patients.

Cancer-fighting conjugates

But next-gen ADCs aren’t the only cancer-fighting conjugates that Optimer can deliver.

Conjugation of radionuclides to Optimer binders creates Optimer-radioconjugates that target the radiotherapy directly to tumour cells. Using this approach cancer cells can be destroyed in a more targeted way than traditional external beam radiation, or Optimer-radioconjugates can support cancer imaging and diagnostics.

Optimer-oligonucleotide conjugates, using RNA therapies, such as siRNA, saRNA, and ASOs, are creating new precision cancer treatments that can modulate the expression of genes important in tumour development or drug resistance.

Optimer antagonists for cancer

Targeting Optimer binders to inhibit specific enzymes or prevent protein-protein interactions creates new therapeutic antagonists that can inhibit cancer cells. An aptamer-based therapy is currently in mid-stage clinical development for glioblastoma in combination with radiotherapy, and for pancreatic cancer in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitors. The opportunity to target new biomarkers with Optimer opens the door to the development of antagonists for new cancer treatment strategies.

Precision patient dosing

In standard chemotherapy, most patients receive a dose based on body weight. However, this doesn’t account for variance in an individual’s metabolism and can give rise to doses that are too low and so ineffective or too high and create excessive side effects. Monitoring the amount of active drug in each patient can allow clinicians to tailor these doses for better effect. Until now, this has always been done using HPLC-MS, which is slow and expensive.

Optimer-based point-of-care assays can offer high-precision information on the amount of chemotherapy in a patient’s bloodstream for tailored dosing regimes. These tests are as accurate as the current HPLC-MS methods but with faster results, enabling real-time treatment changes.

This represents an innovative approach in the field of drug monitoring. The use of Optimer to optimise drug dosage looks toward the horizon of personalised and tailored medicine, which is a new frontier in oncology.

Dr Giuseppe Toffoli, Director of Experimental & Clinical Pharmacology, CRO Aviano

Assay reagents

New cancer biomarkers are being identified and validated in research. A major bottleneck in translating these biomarkers from bench to bedside is the lack of specific reagents for their analysis. These biomarkers can be used in assays like IHC for biopsy analysis to guide clinical decision making, screen for cancers, predict risk, develop new therapies and monitor patient responses to cancer treatments.

The in vitro development methods of Optimer binders overcome the reliance on the immune system that antibodies have, meaning there is a wider target range for these binders to support novel targets.

We work with partners from the brightest minds in academia to global pharma leaders to enable new solutions in cancer research and treatment. Get in touch with the team to support your cancer research challenge with Optimer.