Oncology Marketing & Market Access USA

May 8, 2013 - May 9, 2013, Boston

Understand value, influence stakeholders, deliver reimbursement.

Latest Research Identifies Potential To Mass Produce New Anti-Cancer Substance

Scientists have discovered a new way to practically produce large amounts of a promising novel anti-cancer substance that kills cancer cells in a different way from existing medicines.



Reported yesterday in the American Chemical Society’s Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, the researchers have successfully synthesised the substance, known as AMF-26, and tested it for its effectiveness.

In their published paper, lead author Isamu Shiina and colleagues highlight how AMF-26 exhibited exciting potential against specific types of cancer in the laboratory studies. This finding offers new hope about the possibilities this substance has in the search for new anti-cancer pharmaceuticals.

Specifically the researchers’ interest was focused on the way that AMF-26 performed in targeting the Golgi apparatus, a structure in cells which has not been exploited in the past. The Golgi apparatus sorts and modifies hormones, enzymes and other key proteins for transport elsewhere in the body. 

The challenge for previously mass producing this substance has been that AMF-26 can only be created in small amounts by semisynthesis beginning from AMF-14, which was extracted from the common soil mould of the genus Trichoderma. The key to this successful synthesis was the construction of the chiral linear precursor which was realised through the asymmetric aldol reaction, then followed by computer-assisted predictive analysis. The global antitumor activity was assessed using a panel of human cancer cell lines. 

The authors summarise their findings by confirming that they have developed a “convenient method for preparing AMF-26 as a potentially promising new anticancer drug that disrupts the Golgi system by inhibiting the ADP-ribosylation factor 1 (Arf1) activation”.  Their report describes the first successful practical synthesis of AMF-26 and their laboratory tests have shown that the synthetic AMF-26 is just as effective as its natural counterparts. 

The investigations have been the result of a partnership between the Department of Applied Chemistry at the Tokyo University of Science and the Cancer Chemotherapy Center at the Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research in Tokyo, supported by funding from Health and Labour Sciences Research Grants from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in Japan.

This work has established, for the first time, that there is an effective method for the total synthesis of AMF-26 as an antitumor agent. The large-scale production of AMF-26 and its derivatives for the development of novel anticancer drugs are now underway by the team in the laboratory. 



Oncology Marketing & Market Access USA

May 8, 2013 - May 9, 2013, Boston

Understand value, influence stakeholders, deliver reimbursement.