NEW ORLEANS – WayPath Pharma, in partnership with LSU Health New Orleans, announced that it has secured a $225,000 Small Business Technology Transfer Grant for the research, development and testing of metabolic drug treatments for glioblastomas in dogs.
Glioblastomas are the most aggressive tumors of the central nervous system that typically occur in the brain or spinal cord. The current standard of care therapies include surgery, followed by radiation, chemotherapy, tumor treating fields therapy or targeted drug therapy, which all show only a minimal improvement in prolonging patient survival. WayPath Pharma’s objective is to design, synthesize and test new chemical modifications of fenofibrate, a common lipid-lowering prodrug, to identify the most effective metabolic compound/s against glioblastomas.
“Preclinical studies of chemical modifications in the fenofibrate molecular skeleton helped us identify our prototype drug, PP1, which is stable when exposed to blood, triggered glioblastoma cell death in vitro at concentrations almost fivefold lower than FF and accumulated in the brain tissue at therapeutically sub optional level,” said Dr. Krzysztof Reiss, co-founder of WayPath Pharma. “This prompted us to hypothesize that specific chemical modifications of the common molecular skeleton of PP1 will result in the development of a new anti-glioblastoma metabolic drug(s) with improved blood brain barrier (BBB) penetration and improved glioblastoma-specific cytotoxicity.”
The most effective compound will be used first to treat spontaneous canine tumors. Preliminary tests have shown that the drug will be orally administered to canine patients. WayPath Pharma’s primary focus is to treat cancer in companion animals and to provide both safety and efficacy data for human cancer clinical trials in the future.
STTR grants are federal research grants set aside for small businesses working with a nonprofit research partner, typically a university. WayPath is a development-state companion animal pharmaceutical company formed in 2019 and led by Reiss and Dr. Branko Jursic from LSUHSC and UNO.
The research and development of this project will take place at both LSUHSC – Department of Interdisciplinary Oncology, and the New Orleans BioInnovation Center. The WayPath Pharma team will work on the design and testing of new chemical compounds in preparation for large animal toxicity and efficacy studies in spontaneous canine tumors including glioblastoma. This research is anticipated to lead to a prospective Phase II STTR grant application.
