About MetronomX

MetronomX was founded and capitalized in 2010 by experts in drug development and cancer therapeutics as well as successful entrepreneurs in marketed biologics, generics, pharmaceutical and contract research industries. MetronomX has rapidly established a team of world class experts in manufacturing, formulation, development, clinical trials as well as international thought leaders in cancer drug development, regulatory affairs and metronomic sciences. MetronomX is a Singapore incorporated company with headquarters in Houston, Texas .  (Download Presentation) 

MetronomX is concentrated on dramatically improving the outcome and quality of cancer treatment through development of new medicines in a socially responsible manner.

We are focused on proprietary and cost effective development of cancer chemotherapeutic metronomic therapies. Metronomic chemotherapy, or the administration of low dose, continuous chemotherapy (rather than short cycles of high dose chemotherapy with the obligatory break, often of several weeks to allow for recovery from toxicity), is a paradigm shift in the understanding of how to treat patients with cancer, particularly with regard to the treatment of minimal residual disease and the delay or prevention of tumor recurrence.

Metronomic therapies can dramatically extend the anti-tumor responses and the time to cancer relapse in a certain preclinical cancer models, and emerging clinical data suggest that it can have similar anti-tumor activity in humans. Metronomic chemotherapy is much less toxic than traditional chemotherapy. Importantly it is also much more cost effective than new biologic anti-angiogenic therapies as well as being patient friendly in that it is generally outpatient, oral therapy.

Currently one of our core areas of development is improving medical outcomes in incurable childhood cancers such as neuroblastoma and medulloblastoma.

Traditionally patients with cancer are treated with high dose chemotherapy, or ’maximum tolerated dose’ (MTD) treatment protocols. Because of the intensity of the therapy, it requires rest periods between the cycles of therapy. This rest period frequently allows for the regrowth of tumor cells and in particular, tumor cells that have become resistant to the therapy.

To overcome this problem and in some cases supplement the MTD dosing regimen, the concept of ‘metronomic’ scheduling has been proposed (1). This term refers to the chronic (over months), equally spaced (usually daily dosing) and generally low dose (usually ~ 1/10th the MTD dose) administration of specific chemotherapeutic drugs without rest periods. Dr. Robert Kerbel and colleagues were the first to demonstrate that the metronomic application of widely used chemotherapeutic agents resulted in anti-angiogenic effects (2, -5), although direct anti-tumor cell activity, anti-metastatic activity and enhanced tumor immunogenicity have also been attributed to the profound antitumor effects observed with metronomic therapy. These surprising and unexpected effects can be shown to occur when certain chemotherapeutic drugs are given more frequently, over longer, non-interrupted time frames, and at much lower doses than the MTD.

The preliminary clinical evidence of at least a dozen studies shows that metronomic therapy can be applied safely and with an increased survival and quality of life (6) and as Dr. Bart Kamen and colleagues point out, may be a rediscovery of what has been called continuation or maintenance therapy that has been part of the curative regimens for children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia for at least 50 years (7). The clinical endpoint of evaluation is typically an extension of time to tumor progression. Since it does not lead to a rapid elimination of large tumors, it is most likely to be successful under conditions of minimal residual disease, or administered following a first course of high dose chemotherapy and radiotherapy and/or surgery for significantly sized primary tumors. The dramatic preclinical data and emerging clinical results of certain metronomic therapy show that a variety of different types of cancers can indeed be controlled so that patients may survive much longer with an improved quality of life.