IRB Barcelona and PharmaMar invent a method to reproduce marine substances of pharmacological interest
Biopharmaceutical chemists and the Catalan research center have been working since 2008 to synthesize 'pipecolidepsina A', a molecule that can fight eleven types of cancer.
Redacció
The Institute of Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) and Spanish company PharmaMar, which develops cancer-fighting drugs from marine sources, has successfully synthesized pipecolidepsina A and have shown that it can kill tumor cells (in vitro) in eleven tissues: lung, prostate, colon, pancreas, ovarian, sarcoma, leukemia, liver, kidney, stomach and breast.
Pipecolidepsina A is a substance extracted from the Homophymia lamellose sponge, found on a scientific expedition led by PharmaMar in 2008 off the coast of Madagascar. Since then, this biopharmaceutical company and the IRB Barcelona Combinational Chemistry team led by Dr. Fernando Albericio have been working on the discovery.
The September issue of the journal Nature Communications reveals the synthesis procedure after PharmaMar obtained the patent for it, which lists both the IRB Barcelona researchers and the company as investors. At the same time, both research groups have started an analogue program to simplify synthesis, cut time and production costs, and get greater amounts of the product in order to begin preclinical trials.
Marta Pelay, who received her PhD in February for a thesis related to this project and is first author of the article, has been able to produce four milligrams of this compound in the laboratory, but 100 are needed for extensive biological assays. "The analogue program will allow us to determine which type of cancer would be the most fitting to develop a drug," explains Judit Tulla, a research chemist in Albericio’s laboratory and Pelay’s mentor.
From a promising molecule to 37 more candidates
This molecule belongs to the cyclodepsipeptide family, which is made up of 38 known molecules. The virtue of these molecules, all from sea sponges, is that many have been shown to fight HIV, various resistant bacteria and fungi.
"We have opened a whole new field of synthesis of molecules with therapeutic potential, none of which are on the market yet. We will have to wait until later this year to see if our endeavors lead to the development of a therapeutic molecule with the potential to become a commercial drug,” concludes Tulla. In any case, and if all goes well, it will take a multi-million euro investment and at least 15 years for pipecolidepsin A to reach the market.
More information is available on the IRB Barcelona website.