Understanding Cancer Cell Behavior For Predictive Analytics

Cancer - an ailment that has a history almost as long as 5000 years - has been one of the greatest challenges known to mankind. In the last 2 decades, there have been various discoveries such as chemotherapy, targeted therapy and immunotherapy in the cancer detection, treatment and prevention areas and new technologies in the field of oncology have been adopted to cure cancer. USD 147 billion has been spent globally on cancer treatment in 2020 and the oncology treatment market share is over 20%. The American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) suggests that by 2030 the number of cancer patients worldwide will increase to 22.2 million. India too has projected an increase in cancer patients to 1.57 million in 2025 from 1.39 million in 2020. One of the primary challenges of cancer treatment is to control metastasis - the spreading of cancer to different body parts from where it started.?

Metastasis most commonly develops when cancer cells break away from the main tumor and enter the bloodstream or lymphatic system of a human body. Cancer cells travel far from the original tumor in these bloodstreams and form new tumors when they settle and grow in a different part of the body.

Of the 10 million annual deaths due to cancer, metastasis accounts for >90% of cancer-related mortality. However, only 1 drug has been approved in the last 10 years to treat metastasis. Many clinical trials have been conducted with ample failures. Existing cancer treatments are either applicable only for certain types of cancers or are not effective for all patients. These metastatic cancer cells have been observed to be more drug resistant than non metastatic cancer cells.

Therapies till now have been focusing on either eliminating cells once after they have been detected in the bloodstream or inhibiting cancer growth. However, these cancer cells move into the blood even when the tumor is small making it impossible to be timely treated. Since these cells are not visible and there is no characterization of these moving cells as they have invaded the bloodstream before cancer metastasis gets detected, they are not treated.

With a vision to predict and treat metastasis at the bedrock is Mestastop, a biotech startup developing an AI based platform called METSCAN where they will characterize cancer cells using patient data samples to understand the cell behavior. Mestastop will study the change in cell behavior at different stages of the tumor. Their plan is to use predictive analytics to diagnose which cancer patients have a higher chance of metastasis based on the way their cells are behaving at a very early stage itself. They have subdivided metastasis into 4 stages - a primary tumor stage, invasion of cells in bloodstream, transition and survival in the bloodstream and growth in another body organ. To study each of these 4 stages, Mestastop has identified 15 assays. These assays are basically parameters that help in understanding cancer cell behavior, similar to how a person’s socio-demographic factors helps you understand their consumer behavior. Each assay measures the behavior of the cancer cell and the data is then mapped on a chart. The characteristics of these cancer cells are compared to characteristics of cells from a healthy person’s body. Once the cancer cells are characterized on the METSCAN platform, they proceed into validating this in animal models. This analytics and diagnosis can also be used for drug discovery to treat metastasis at a later stage.?

Dr. Arnab, the founder of Mestastop is a very passionate entrepreneur who understands the complexity of metastasis and the problem he is trying to address. He has almost two decades worth of experience in cytology and cell biology using which he is trying to develop tools to diagnose and predict cancer. He is supported by an extremely strong leadership team with 5 decades worth of experience and domain expertise in the oncology space. The advisors are all leaders in top hospitals in India and the startup has strong network connections and access to a large pool of resources.?

Globally, there are multiple companies working in metastasis cancer diagnostics and treatment space where the focus is more on a particular type of cancer or development of assays. QCDx , a USA based company is developing instruments that detect circulating tumor cell heterogeneity. RemedyPlan , a Washington D.C. based company that raised USD 6.7 million in 2019 is Developing "cancer containment therapy" through proprietary drug screening platform, while MetaguideX and Cellanyx are predicting cancer using in-vitro diagnostics and AI-driven biomarker analysis. The most common approach to diagnostics is liquid biopsy where you try to detect cancer at an early stage by analyzing biomarkers circulating in fluids such as blood. With an increase in the number of cancer cases, the market size of metastatic cancer treatment was valued at USD 63.03 billion globally. It is expected to grow at 7.3% CAGR to be USD 111.16 billion by 2027. New technologies such as cell therapy, understanding gene mutation, molecular cancer diagnostics and microbiome treatment are aiming to prevent, detect and treat cancer by understanding more about how cancer is evolving and how it behaves and interacts at a cellular level. This research will help in the development of precision medicine to cure cancer patients and might change the future of cancer treatment.?

With a vision to be a market maker and back entrepreneurs who are building innovative technologies, the cancertech and drug discovery sectors fit the investment thesis of CIIE.CO. Oncology treatment is a global market where currently few developments have happened in the metastatic cancer research and development space. It seems like the right time to set foot in this space and support startups to bring disruption in India’s biotech journey to solve one of the largest issues.

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About the Author:

@Drishti Patel is an Analyst at CIIE.CO, the Innovation Continuum, India’s foremost entrepreneurship centre housed at IIM Ahmedabad.