The endocrine systems comprise of a number of glands that secrete hormones into the bloodstream from where they influence the behaviours of cells at other, sometimes distant, parts of the body. The normal functioning of the body requires tight control of this endocrine system, but sometimes this control becomes weakened or lost giving rise to endocrine disorders such as neuroendocrine cancer.
Syntaxin's active drug discovery programme is pursuing novel therapeutic agents to treat endocrine tumour disorders resulting from tumours derived from the pituitary, thyroid and pancreas, for example. Syntaxin's approach is to control the hypersecretion of hormones from the endocrine tumour cancer cells, thereby ameliorating a range of hormone dependent conditions.
One way in which this control can be lost is when the hormone-producing cells proliferate in an uncontrolled manner giving rise to neuroendocrine cancer and other endocrine tumours which, if functioning, cause elevated levels of hormone in the body. For example, diseases arising from pituitary adenomas include acromegaly and Cushing's disease. Although these conditions are relatively rare the symptoms can be life-threatening. In many cases patients can be treated successfully by surgical removal of the tumour, anti-tumour chemotherapy, radiotherapy or by other drug/hormone treatments. However, for a number of endocrine tumour–dependent conditions, there is a residual population for which none of these treatments is appropriate or successful. In these cases there is an opening for the application of Syntaxin's pioneering neuroendocrine cancer treatment technology.
Factors making these diseases appropriate for such a therapeutic approach are:
Syntaxin Ltd. is actively pursuing these strands of the endocrine disorder spectrum with a view to developing novel therapeutic agents to treat heretofore intractable presentations of these often debilitating and sometimes life-threatening conditions such as neuroendocrine cancer and tumours.