Anaeropharma Science

Solid cancers have immature vascular constructs and their interstitial tumors are in the states of hypoxia and hypoglycemia. The cancer cells under this anaerobic micro-environment perform energy metabolism by enhancing the glycolysis system, and by activating a hypoxia-inducible factor represented for the hypoxia-response, produce various physiologically active substances for a tumor angiogenesis factor and metastasis, to retain/facilitate their growth. Although studies of the innovative drug development for new anti-cancer agents targeting the special micro-environment of such solid cancers have been advanced worldwide, there have been no drugs for practical use yet, because of diverse actions of such targeted factors in cancer cells.

A privately held biopharmaceutical company based in Tokyo, Japan, Anaeropharma Science was established in 2004 to pioneer the development of novel therapeutics to target such a hypoxic environment in solid cancers based on its proprietary platform technology, recombinant bifidobacterium therapeutics. The company’s research team has found and reported that when bifidobacterium was intravenously injected into tumor bearing mice, it was accumulated specifically to the solid tumor. Bifidobacterium is obligatory anaerobe and present as enteroflora in human and many mammals, and known as nonpathogenic bacteria being used practically as health foods etc. from a long time ago. The company is developing to leverage the bifidobacterium technology to create a new class of anti-cancer drugs.