Technological projects portfolio

The combination of cisplatin-based chemotherapy with radiotherapy is a common strategy in the treatment of certain cancers. While this strategy has proven effective, the 5-year survival rate does not exceed 20% for certain types of cancer. The reasons for therapeutic failures are recurrence and the appearance of metastases simultaneous to a resistance to treatments.

This strategy often ends in a therapeutic impasse due to the appearance of resistance to radiotherapy, delivered as a first-line treatment.

The New-Pt-Rad-OE project aims to develop a new series of platinum complexes with greater radiosensitizing capacities than those of cisplatin. The effect of these new molecules on various cancerous cell lines is synergistic with that of radiotherapy, and the two treatments can therefore be administered in combination with one another. While they are cytotoxic themselves, some of these complexes exert their radiosensitizing effect at subtoxic doses.

This technology therefore makes it possible to decrease radiation doses and reduce the intrinsic cytotoxicity of both of the treatments.

The first cancers targeted by this new strategy are those cancers where current treatments rely on either immunotherapy or the combination of chemotherapy (cisplatin) and radiotherapy, to which resistance frequently occurs. The proposed solution could also be applied to the treatment of recurring cancers or advanced cancers prior to surgery.