As the arsenal of available cancer therapies has grown and evolved from cytotoxic chemotherapy to targeted therapy to immunotherapy, one fact has unfortunately remained constant nearly all cancer drug therapies eventually fail due to the development of drug resistance. Mutation of cellular DNA is central to the formation of cancer, and chronic mutation of the cancer genome is a primary cause of cancer evolution and drug resistance, resulting in ineffective therapy, cancer recurrence and metastasis, and decreased overall survival. ApoGen Biotechnologies, Inc. is focused on the development of new class of therapeutics targeting drivers of cancer genomic mutation.
Our lead target is APOBEC3B (A3B), a DNA cytosine deaminase and an important endogenous source of DNA mutation in cancer. A3B was recently identified as a dominant source of the characteristic C-to-T mutational pattern and higher overall mutational load seen in numerous cancers. Elevated levels of A3B were shown to be a key driver in the formation of cancers including breast, head and neck, lung, bladder, cervical, ovarian, myeloma, and some blood cancers. ApoGen’s drug discovery and development efforts are directed toward highly selective and potent small molecule inhibitors of A3B. These inhibitors aim to slow or stop cancer genome mutation and the development of drug resistance, potentially increasing the effectiveness of current and future therapies.
