Vall d’Hebron announces the success of Omomyc: a new drug that stops breast cancer metastases

Researchers at the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO) have shown that Omomyc, a therapeutic protein that works to target primary tumorsit is also effective for metastasis in breast cancer.

It has long been known with certainty that the MYC gene family plays an important role in the development of many types of tumors, and Omomyc, as a tumor-inhibiting protein, is effective in treating primary tumors. However, there is some controversy about the role of MYC in metastasis, and some studies even suggest that inhibiting it would be counterproductive and could enhance cancer regrowth.

But the VHIO research, whose data has just been published in Cancer Research Communications (a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research), has shown the efficacy of inhibiting MYC with Omomyc, through different experiments both in vitro and in alive. “The response has been very positive and in all cases it has been verified that Omomyc has significant antimetastatic activitycontrary to what had been speculated”, explains the Dr. Daniel Massoresearcher of the spin-off Peptomyc and first author of the article.

“It makes us optimistic and think that, if these patients were treated with our drug, perhaps we could improve their survival”

“Until now, we had shown that Omomyc was effective in controlling many primary tumors; now, in addition, we have also seen that it is an effective drug by blocking the invasion, establishment and growth of metastases in breast cancer“, adds Dr. Laura Soucek, co-director of Translational and Preclinical Research and head of the VHIO Antitumor Therapies Modeling Group.

Omomyc, the miniprotein created by Vall d’Hebron

Omomyc was created by Vall d’Hebron as a miniprotein capable of inhibiting MYC and, after multiple preclinical studies whose results have gone around the world, it is already being tested in patients, in a clinical trial that began in May last year.

Prior to trial, Omomyc had already demonstrated potent antitumor activity in multiple tumor cell lines and mouse cancer models, regardless of their tissue of origin and their mutations. However, all of the research to date with this drug has focused on primary tumors and its efficacy against metastatic disease has never been proven.

With this latest study, it has been possible to demonstrate it through a multitude of experiments, both in in vitro models and in mouse models. In the former, the efficacy was tested in all types of tumors, while in the latter the work focused on triple negative breast cancer, a disease that urgently needs better therapeutic options.

Although the research carried out has not yet been carried out with people, the VHIO did analyze patient databases, in which it was possible to verify that those patients with breast cancer who presented overexpression of the genes that Omomyc blocks had a longer survival short. “This makes us optimistic and think that, if these patients were treated with our drug, perhaps we could improve their survival,” Dr. Massó points out.