Radiation therapy is the medical use of ionizing radiation to treat cancer. Traditional radiotherapy involves the use of focused external radiation beams that are aimed from several angles to intersect at a tumor, providing a more concentrated dose of radiation at that site of disease than in the surrounding healthy tissue. Traditional radiation therapy is often used in combination with surgery, chemotherapy and/or hormone therapy. It is estimated that between 50-60 % of cancer patients undergo some form of radiation therapy during the course of their treatment. While effective for treating the primary tumor or local spread, external beam radiation may result in damage to the surrounding healthy tissue, and importantly is not appropriate when the cancer has metastasized to distant areas of the body.
The field of molecular medicine is facilitating the development of even more precise therapies through the creation of targeted radiotherapeutics. Molecular Insight is developing targeted therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals for the treatment of several type of cancer. These radiopharmaceuticals, administered systemically to a patient, consist of a homing portion of the molecule that seeks out a cancer-restricted protein associated with the disease, enabling the delivery of the radioactive therapeutic portion of the molecule specifically to the diseased cells thereby sparing the surrounding healthy tissue and organs. Radiopharmaceuticals can be designed that are capable of delivering a variety of different radioisotopes; further enabling physicians to not only selectively target a tumor but to adjust the intensity of the radiation dose depending on the size and location of the tumor.
Molecular Insight believes there is an opportunity to further improve many targeted radiotherapeutics through the application of its proprietary Ultratrace™ technology. Ultratrace enables further refinement of radiotherapeutic targeting capabilities by producing ultrapure compounds that enhance the delivery of radiation to the tumor site while reducing the potential risk of side effects related to the non-radioactive drug. Molecular Insight’s three lead radiotherapeutic oncology product candidates are Azedra™, Onalta™ and Solazed™.