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Product Pipeline - Background
Kereos' targeted therapeutics and molecular imaging agents will enable clinicians to both diagnose disease in situ via definitive molecular markers and to deliver therapeutics exclusively to diseased tissue using those same biomarkers. In combination, they represent the most direct route to saving lives by exploiting the rapid advance of molecular medicine.
Finding and treating tumors earlier is the best way to improve survival.
In the US, more than 1.7 million persons annually are diagnosed with cancer, and despite more than $60 billion spent treating it, significant improvements in survival have not yet been achieved. In part this stems from the advanced stage at which many cancers and their recurrence are first detected, but also from the lack of decidedly effective therapies beyond surgery. The Kereos pipeline for cancer attacks this problem from both ends.
The fundamental tenet of oncology is that earlier detection results in better outcomes. With its first cancer candidate, Kereos is pushing the ability to detect tumors virtually back to the point where they become tumors. Such a capability may be useful not only in assessing primary cancer pre- and post-therapy, but also in locating recurrent and metatstatic disease. By finding primary and metastatic tumors earlier, Kereos’ imaging agents will enable earlier and more effective treatment and improve outcomes.
Cancer therapies targeted at inhibiting pathways and products unique to tumors have already demonstrated the improved effectiveness of targeted therapeutics compared to and in combination with traditional therapies. The price of this effectiveness has often been a strict limit on the appropriate patient population. With its site-targeted chemotherapeutics for cancer, Kereos not only is developing products potentially complementary to both classical and more recent targeted therapies but also potentially applicable across the breadth of tumors covered by its molecular imaging agents. Attacking tumors with a powerful, yet highly focused dose of potent chemotherapeutics will allow treatment of a wide range of tumors, including those early cancers and recurrences found by the imaging agents KI-0001 and KI-0003.
(Coronary Artery Disease)
Killing more than 500,000 persons each year in the US and afflicting at least 13 million, coronary artery disease costs more than $60 billion annually to treat. While many of the afflicted are stabilized and managed with therapies such as balloon angioplasty, drug-coated stents, statins and anti-platelet agents, myocardial infarction and death remain the predominant ultimate outcomes.
While most heart attack fatalities appear to be due to the sudden rupture of unstable plaques, none of the nearly 10 million diagnostic procedures performed annually in the US are able to detect it. With its first cardiovascular disease candidate, Kereos is addressing this unmet need to diagnose and assess unstable plaque. By unmasking unstable plaque,
physicians will identify those at highest risk and lead to more effective treatment of this major killer.
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