Rana Sanyal

Cancer remains one of the world’s most devastating diseases, killing nearly ten million people every year, and this number is expected to increase 70 percent by 2035. Chemotherapy, one of the most widely used cancer treatments, can save lives. But it involves blasting the entire body with toxic chemicals in the hope that some will reach cancer cells. Many patients experience debilitating side effects.

The future of oncology lies in targeted therapies co-created by researchers from multiple disciplines—chemists, biologists, pharmacists, doctors—who combine their knowledge to develop innovative treatments. Researcher Rana Sanyal has spent her career immersed in this world.

Rana had a formative experience early in her career at a pharmaceutical company where she was part of a drug development team bringing a molecule from research to clinic. The first patient in the clinical trial was a 27-year-old terminal cancer patient in a coma. He had little hope of recovery. A jumble of tubes hung by his side. “Then something amazing happened that transformed me forever,” Rana says. “After he received our medicine, he was sitting in his bed, free of the tubes, eating lunch without help. I still remember that feeling of making a real difference, changing someone’s life.”

Since 2004, as part of her research work at Turkey’s Boğaziçi University, Rana has been investigating drug delivery systems that avoid chemotherapy’s side effects while still wiping out cancer cells. RS Research was spun off from her university research in 2015 to bring this unique approach to market.

The company developed the Sagitta® platform, a delivery technology with patent applications in more than 58 countries. Using the technology, the chemotherapy drug is packaged within the polymeric carrier. The carrier is then ornamented with a targeting unit. The tumor cell surface receptors recognize and bind to the targeting unit, internalizing the carrier, and the toxic agent is released directly in the tumor without damaging healthy cells in the rest of the body. “Instead of giving a drug to the whole body, we localize the drug inside the tumor,” Rana says. This smart chemotherapy is more effective and carries fewer side effects than conventional chemotherapy.

In 2019, seven of ten FDA-approved drugs were brought to Phase I clinical trials by start-ups. “I want to continue my research and develop new nanomedicines while our drug candidates move forward through commercialization with our future partners,” Rana says. The company is moving its own drug candidates—targeting non-small cell lung cancer and breast, prostate, ovarian, and pancreatic cancers—through clinical development in addition to offering the platform to other companies.

While results are not yet in from these trials, all signs point to a breakthrough with the potential to bring new hope to millions of cancer patients. Hope comes in the company’s promise of a “cure with a smile,” whereby patients do not suffer through miserable side effects in the quest for a cure.