An act of cultural defiance nearly 19 years ago has led to the development of a drug that could extend the lives of some cancer patients.
The first drug of its kind, Vynfinit uses a homing molecule to target a receptor separating cancer cells from healthy cells. Last week, European Union regulators recommended the drug be approved as a treatment for recurrent ovarian cancer in adult women whose disease does not respond to platinum-based chemotherapy. However, this medicinal progression would not exist without the company that developed it, Endocyte.
Founded in 1995 by Philip Low, a Ralph C. Corley distinguished professor of chemistry and director of the biochemistry Purdue Center for Drug Discovery, Endocyte is the product of Purdue’s cautious entry into the realm of corporate professors.
Following a report of his discovery of a means of targeting drugs to cancer cells, Low received numerous offers from venture capitalists seeking to start a company with him, though in the end he started the company with a corporate friend.
“It was interesting … I didn’t even know what a venture capitalist was,” Low said. “I went back to my department head at Purdue and I said ‘Listen, I think I’d like to start a company,’ and he said ‘You want to what?’”
Low explained how at the time, the professional culture limited professors to be solely interested in “discovering new knowledge for the sake of just understanding the universe, not for any practical application.”
Eventually, with the University president’s blessing, Endocyte was created.
“They were very cautious; there was all sorts of concern of prostituting yourself (and) not being true to the description of a university professor,” Low said. “It’s been a lot of bumps and ruts in the road, but in general, the trajectory has been a very positive one, and now 18 years later … the company’s worth over a billion dollars, so it’s been a good trip.”
He explained the company’s most recent success with Vynfinit and how the drug works.
“We found through a number of different scientific studies that these cancers were ovarian cancers, lung cancers, kidney cancers, breast cancers, endometrial cancers and colon cancers; those were the main ones,” he said. “With that information, we decided to conduct our initial clinical trials on the cancers that had the highest level of expression of this particular receptor … and those were ovarian cancer and lung cancer, and so far the data on those cancers looks very promising.”
Brittney Scifres, a sophomore in the College of Engineering, was excited at the prospect of a potential treatment since her grandmother passed away from lung cancer. Scifres remains fearful for her other at-risk family members with similar smoking habits, but felt relieved knowing there’s a chance they can be taken care of, should they become diagnosed.
“It’s really exciting to me because my grandma was 58 when she died and she was a lifetime smoker,” she said. “(My other relatives) are chain-smokers and so I really think this is a great thing because … if (they) were to develop it, there is a treatment.”
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