Each year 14 million people worldwide find out they have cancer, and 8 million die from the disease.
It is now the leading cause of death around the world, and there is no cure. However, one company is working on what it believes to be an effective method to help control the spread of the disease, and treat and stabilize the cancer.
Propanc Health Group is a Melbourne, Australia-based health care company currently focusing on developing new cancer treatments for patients with solid tumors such as pancreatic and colorectal cancer. With its lead product, PRP, currently in animal trials — and soon moving to clinical trials, the company believes it has a way to extend the life expectancy of cancer patients. In a previously conducted compassionate care study, PRP did increase life expectancy in terminal patients.
The way it works is this: Propanc has identified that pancreatic proenzymens are able to suppress, or stop, a long-silent embryonic program reactivated by cancer cells, by returning cancer cells back toward normal behavior. This is important because certain cancer cells develop traits such as motility, invasiveness and a resistance to death. They also become “stem-cell” like and develop the ability to seed new tumors. This process, called metastasis, is responsible for about 90 percent of deaths from cancer.
“From our research we observed that pancreatic proenzymes enforce the re-entry of cancer cells into normal cellular pathways and could represent an exciting new method of managing the disease process,” said Dr. Julian Kenyon, Chief Scientific Officer of Propanc Health Group. “We believe this small but significant step supports my initial observations from clinical practice that pancreatic proenzymes have the potential to prolong life and stop tumors from spreading, especially if we treat patients during earlier stages of the disease process.”
The company’s vision is to identify active anti-cancer agents, which have anti-cancer effects and are a less-toxic and effective way to treat patients, compared to standard treatment approaches. “Propanc is a very well tolerated medication and has been shown to extend survival time well beyond that expected in any of the patients it has been used on,” said Dr. Kenyon. “These results are by far and away better than I have ever seen with chemotherapy, radiotherapy or monoclonal antibodies, which are the treatments offered currently.”
