One of the unfortunate downsides of living in the 21st century is the fact that most of us will have to deal with cancer in our lifetimes. The numbers are decently terrifying, actually. Based on 2015 estimates, it’s assumed that nearly 1 in 2 Canadians (45% of men and 43% of women) will get cancer during their lifetime, and about 1 in 4 Canadians (26% of men and 23% of women) will be killed by it.
Health Canada estimates that there will be 225,800 new cancer cases and 83,300 cancer deaths in Canada in 2020. It’s the leading cause of death in Canada, responsible for 30% of total deaths.
Yeah. This is where we are in our developmental process. We have the world’s store of knowledge in the palm of our hands, we have the ability to blast any enemy combatant off the face of the earth with the flick of a switch, but we’re slowly losing the war against our environment. We came to this cancer-fighting war too late, it seems. Our air’s polluted with chemicals, those closest to us can’t kick their cancer-stick addictions, and it takes a close look at our food to ensure that we’re not ingesting carcinogens along with our macronutrients.
It is estimated that in 2020:
- 115,800 Canadian men will be diagnosed with cancer and 44,100 men will die from cancer.
- 110,000 Canadian women will be diagnosed with cancer and 39,300 women will die from cancer.
- On average, 617 Canadians will be diagnosed with cancer every day.
- On average, 228 Canadians will die from cancer every day.
Treatment options aren’t exactly great, either. Radiation can make our hair fall out, chemo makes us deathly ill, and there’s a five year wait to make sure the cancer doesn’t come back. Adding insult to injury, the United States medical system is akin to highway robbery, so getting cancer comes with a pricetag akin to buying a small house. Luckily, we Canadians don’t need to deal with that. But there are companies out there looking around for new options, especially now that the United States and Canada are starting to warm up to the idea of the medicinal value of former street drugs like cannabis and psilocybin.
On that note we’ll take a slight vacation from the doom and gloom and discuss Revive Therapeutics (RVV.C) latest research collaboration with PharmaTher, a subsidiary of Newscope Capital (PHRM.C). They’re putting their heads together to speed-up the development of psilocybin as a potential treatment option for cancer, and also looking for alternative uses for other psychedelic compounds.
“Revive continues to be focused on developing novel uses for psilocybin that leverages our proprietary oral thin film delivery technology as a differentiated therapeutic approach. We are excited to advance the development of PharmaTher’s recent discovery in the potential of psilocybin to treat certain cancers such as Liver Carcinoma, Melanoma, Breast Neoplasms, Kidney Neoplasms and Acute Myeloid Leukemia. We are also leveraging PharmaTher’s panaceAI discovery AI platform to discover new uses of undisclosed psychedelic compounds to be potentially used with our oral thin film delivery technology and expand our psychedelics drug pipeline,” said Michael Frank, CEO of Revive.
This research partnership is coming on the heels of PharmaTher’s recent filing of provisional patent application regarding the potential use of psilocybin as a cancer treatment option, which was discovered by panaceAI, which is PharmaTher’s drug repurposing artificial intelligence platform. The patent application is called “Use of Psilocybin in the Treatment of Cancers,” and it lays out psilocybin’s potential use for Liver Carcinoma, Melanoma, Breast Neoplasms, Kidney Neoplasms and Acute Myeloid Leukemia.
This research collaboration with Revive is PharmaTher’s first with panaceAI and validates PharmaTher’s business model regarding finding new uses for psychedelics and partnering with life sciences companies interested in expanding their product pipeline with psychedelics.
“We recently achieved an important milestone in expanding our patent portfolio with the potential of psilocybin to treat certain cancer indications. Our research collaboration with Revive validates our business model in discovering novel uses of psychedelics with panaceAI and partnering these discoveries with life sciences companies seeking to expand their product pipeline with psychedelics. We are happy to accelerate Revive’s objective in building a unique psychedelic drug pipeline via the FDA development and approval process,” said Fabio Chianelli, CEO of PharmaTher.
The collaboration will give Revive the opportunity to expand their psilocybin research to include treatment of cancer and use PharmaTher’s panaceAI psychedelic discover AI to screen and identify other psychedelic compounds which could theoretically be targeted for use with Revive’s drug delivery technology.
—Joseph Morton
Full disclosure: Revive Therapeutics is an equity.guru marketing client.
