Each year, tens of thousands of Americans are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, a disease in which malignant cells form in the tissues of the pancreas. While only about 6 inches long, the pancreas performs two crucial jobs in the body; to produce juices that help digest food and to produce hormones, such as insulin and glucagon, that help control blood sugar levels. The hormones are produced by the endocrine pancreas cells and the digestive juices are produced by exocrine cells, where the majority of pancreatic cancers begin. The signs and symptoms of pancreatic cancer often don’t occur until the disease is quite advanced, when surgical removal is no longer possible, which is why it has such a poor prognosis. According to the American Cancer Society, for all stages of pancreatic cancer combined, the one-year relative survival rate is 20 percent, and the five-year rate is 4 percent.

Doctors diagnosed Swayze with stage 4 pancreatic cancer last January, with the cancer having spread to his liver. He underwent an aggressive course of chemotherapy and treatment with an experimental drug. While undergoing chemotherapy, and without taking painkillers, he began filming on a new TV detective series “The Beast,” mostly in cold, Chicago night conditions. “I think everybody thought I was out of my mind, you know, thinking I’m gonna pull of a TV show.” But in five months of filming, Swayze missed only a day and a half of work. And, as for his decision to abstain from painkillers, Swayze says: “When you’re shooting, you can’t do drugs. I can’t do Hydrocodone or Vicodin or these kinds of things that take the edge off of it, ‘cause it takes the edge off of your brain.” As it stands now, Swayze has sworn off the chemo in favor of a new treatment.

Experiments at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Minnesota have recently identified one such protein.  The “Seven-In-Absentia-Homolog” (SIAH) protein can shut down a key pathway in another gene, K-RAS, which in mutated form has been previously linked to excessive growth of pancreatic cancer. K-RAS normally promotes growth, but in its abnormal form it kicks into overdrive, opening a major signaling pathway that helps increase cell growth in people with pancreatic cancer. “By attacking the SIAH-based protein-degrading machinery, we block tumor formation in one of the most aggressive human cancer cells known,” said Mayo researcher Amy Tang in a news release.

In experiments with fruit flies, increased SIAH expression was associated with increased grades and aggressiveness of pancreatic cancer. Tang said studies should follow into whether SIAH inhibition can hold true for humans.

The beta interferons are currently administered by subcutaneous injection and have been proven clinically to slow the advance of multiple sclerosis and reduce the frequency of attacks. Current worldwide combined annual sales of Rebif , Betaseron and Betaferon are approximately $4 Billion.

Because proteins are large and fragile molecules, they cannot be administered orally and are typically administered by injection. They are often subject to instability due to aggregation of the protein molecules — particularly upon storage and handling at non-refrigerated temperatures. The resulting protein aggregates are more poorly absorbed into the blood stream upon injection due to their increased size, and induce development of circulating antibodies to interferon in patients that reduce the effectiveness of the drug over time.

Nerveda is a privately funded specialty pharmaceutical and diagnostic company focused on improving the quality of life for patients suffering from neurodegenerative diseases and their caregivers. Nerveda supports the clinical development of products licensed from Johns Hopkins University, including neuroprotective compounds and stem cell therapeutics that show promise in treating auto-immune disorders.

Aegis Therapeutics LLC is a drug delivery technology company commercializing its patented or proprietary drug delivery and drug formulation technologies through product-specific licenses. Our patented Intravail  drug delivery technology enables the non-invasive delivery of a broad range of protein, peptide and non-peptide macromolecular therapeutics that can currently only be administered by injection. Aegis’ Intravail  absorption enhancement agents provide exceptionally high and unmatched bioavailability performance, comparable in efficiency to subcutaneous injection, via the intranasal administration route. Intravail has also been successfully applied to buccal, oral, and rectal administration of small molecule, peptide, and nucleotide-analog type drugs. Our patented ProTek  technology allows creation of proprietary, easily manufacturable, and stable aqueous or lyophilized dosage forms that maintain the integrity and physiological activity of many protein and peptide therapeutics. ProTek technology is applicable to injectable, intranasal, and other dosage forms of peptide or protein therapeutics.