Cancer is a

Global epidemic...

• Every sixth death in the world is due to cancer¹.
• Globally, there will be more than 35 million new cancer cases in 2050, a 77% increase from the estimated 20 million cases in 2022².
• With more than 1.4 million new cases per year globally, prostate cancer is the 2nd most commonly occuring cancer in men and the 5th leading cause of cancer death among men³.
• Neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) are increasing worldwide. In the US alone, where incidence is rising by more than 5% per year, 12.000 people are diagnosed annually⁴.
• The emergence of treatment resistance, by which patients do not respond to cancer therapies, is a global concern. Indeed, drug resistance and the resulting ineffectivness of the drug treatment are responsible for up to 90% of cancer-related deaths⁵.

¹ Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study. ² World Health Organization (WHO). ³ Rawla P (2019). Epidemiology of Prostate Cancer. World J Oncol. 2019 Apr; 10(2): 63–89. ⁴ National Cancer Institute. ⁵ Wang X et al., (2019). Drug resistance and combating drug resistance in cancer. Cancer Drug Resist. 2019; 2(2): 141–160. ⁶ Freedland SJ et al., (2023). Real-world treatment patterns and overall survival among men with Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer (mCRPC) in the US Medicare population. Prostate Cancer Prostatic Dis. 2023 Oct 2. ⁷ Liu T et al., (2019). Treatments for patients with advanced neuroendocrine tumors: a network meta-analysis. Ther Adv Med Oncol. 2019; 11: 1758835919853673.

...with

suboptimal solutions.

• Undesirable side effects are commonplace in cancer treatment, both in the case of broad-spectrum chemotherapies and targeted therapies. Although to a lesser extent in the case of targeted therapies, side effects hanmper the quality of life of patients during treatments period.
• Side effects aside, current therapies notably have a limited efficacy, especially in the case of aggressive forms of cancer.
  • For example, metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer has a medium survival time of 23 months after treatment initiation, and more than 1 in 5 patients do not recieve any life-prolonging therapy⁶.
  • In the case of neuroendocrine tumors, although radical small proportion of patients are suitable for surgery as more than 50% of cases have advanced disease at diagnosis⁷.
• By undergoing genetic changes, cancer cells can escape the effects of pharmacological treatments to become resistant. In the case, patients are left with only few or no alternative treatments, highlighting the need to develop therapies capable of bypassing or overcoming resistance mechanism.

¹ Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study. ² World Health Organization (WHO). ³ Rawla P (2019). Epidemiology of Prostate Cancer. World J Oncol. 2019 Apr; 10(2): 63–89. ⁴ National Cancer Institute. ⁵ Wang X et al., (2019). Drug resistance and combating drug resistance in cancer. Cancer Drug Resist. 2019; 2(2): 141–160. ⁶ Freedland SJ et al., (2023). Real-world treatment patterns and overall survival among men with Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer (mCRPC) in the US Medicare population. Prostate Cancer Prostatic Dis. 2023 Oct 2. ⁷ Liu T et al., (2019). Treatments for patients with advanced neuroendocrine tumors: a network meta-analysis. Ther Adv Med Oncol. 2019; 11: 1758835919853673.