Perseus SENOLYTIX™ is an affiliated of SENOTHERAPEUTIX™
Aging is the primary risk factor for chronic diseases, including Alzheimer’s Disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis, macular degeneration, along with many others, including cancer. Our affiliated companies’ lead programs, powered by proprietary MitoXcel™ geropeptides, have the remarkable ability to rejuvenate naturally aged mice via two separate mechanisms, both targeting the Mitochondrial Membrane Potential (MMP, ΔΨm) to dramatically eliminate senescent cells throughout the body in the medium to longer term, and to enhance the efficiency of mitochondrial function in aging cells in general, beginning in the short term, with no apparent adverse side effects. These MitoXcel™ geropeptides work via a completely novel mechanism of action, targeting the lower and declining ΔΨm found in senescent cells compared to non-senescent cells, and in aging cells in general, that develops as we age.
Cancer cells also have less capacity to maintain the mitochondrial ΔΨm compared with normal cells, suggesting ΔΨm as a selective functional target for cancer too. We found that in vitro, MitoXcel™ oncopeptides PTC-2109 and PTC-2110 show activity against multiple human cancer cell lines including Ph+ B-ALL, Ph-”like” B-ALL, T-ALL, AML, lung, liver, colon, breast and bladder cancer. MitoXcel™ geropeptide PTC-2107 (Eos SENOLYTIX) alone and oncopeptide PTC-2110 (Perseus SENOLYTIX), alone and in combination with Venetoclax, also significantly improve overall survival in an aggressive B cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (“B-ALL”) in vivo tumor model, in which 750,000 TOM-1 cells, harboring both a wild type ABL1 and JAK2 V617F mutation, were injected into the tail veins of NSG mice, and treatment was begun 3 days later (log rank – saline vs PTC-2110 = 0.0034). In animals alive on Day 31, at End of Study, treatment with Perseus SENOLYTIX’s lead clinical candidate MitoXcel™ oncopeptide PTC-2110, alone and in combination with Venetoclax, exhibited almost complete control of tumor cells, equivalent to ponatinib-treated mice, as evidenced by flow cytometry of lung and spleen, despite the significantly lower exposure to drug treatment (24 vs 5 total doses per animal per group or almost 5X greater in the ponatinib-treated group) and the absence of any ABL1-targeted TKI therapy in PTC-2110-treated animals (see the bottom of the Science and Technology page).
Perseus SENOLYTIX is developing novel MitoXcel™ oncopeptides to target cancer via this novel mechanism. In pre-clinical studies, our MitoXcel™ geropeptides and oncopeptides have been administered at escalating doses for over 16 weeks with no evidence of toxicity, opening the door for a potential safe and effective new class of cancer therapeutics.
Gerotherapeutics aim to target aging’s underlying biological processes to extend healthspan and reduce healthcare burdens. It has been said that a successful gerotherapeutic would have a value that is too high to calculate — it instantly would become the most valuable medical intervention in history because of the number of person-years of healthy life that could be manufactured.
In 2017, SENOTHERAPEUTIX, Inc. was founded in Houston, TX focused on developing gerotherapeutics to improve healthspan and increase lifespan. The Company’s dramatic discoveries and innovative technologies in the fields of geroscience and longevity medicine, have been spun out into three wholly owned subsidiaries of SENOTHERAPEUTIX, Inc.: (1) Eos SENOLYTIX, a longevity company developing novel MitoXcel™ geropeptides to improve healthspan and increase lifespan (2) Perseus SENOLYTIX, an oncology company developing novel MitoXcel™ oncopeptides to target cancer via this same novel mechanism as a potentially safe and effective new class of cancer therapeutics and (3) Phoenix SENOLYTIX, developing novel, controllable gene therapies utilizing our proprietary ApoptiCIDe™ purposeful cell elimination technology to improve healthspan and increase lifespan. Visit our affiliate Companies to learn more about them!
