Iranian Knowledge-Based Firm Produces Drug for Treatment of Metastatic Breast Cancer
“One of our company’s products is albociclib 100/125 mg with the generic name palbociclib,” said Qassem Ashofteh, the managing director of the knowledge-based company.
He explained that the drug selectively affects CDK4 and CDK6, adding that the kinases CDK4 and CDK6 (as well as cyclin D1) play a key role in regulating the progression of the cell cycle in the G1/S phase.
“Inhibition of CDK4/6 prevents the cell from progressing from the G1 phase to the S phase of the cell cycle, thereby reducing the proliferation of breast cancer cells,” Ashofteh said.
Noting that the drug is prescribed for the treatment of advanced or metastatic HR-positive and HER2-negative breast cancer, he said, “The pharmaceutical form of this drug is an oral capsule that should be taken with food.”
Palbociclib is an endocrine-based chemotherapeutic agent used in combination with other antineoplastic agents to treat HER2-negative and HR-positive advanced or metastatic breast cancer.
In a relevant development in 2024, a researcher at Tarbiat Modares University (TMU) in Iran had also designed and produced electrochemical biosensors for the early detection of microRNAs that are involved in breast cancer.
“Designing and manufactureing of electrochemical biosensors for early detection of microRNAs involved in breast cancer in a microfluidic platform” was the title of the PhD thesis done by Jalil Parchekani Choozaki at the Tehran-based Tarbiat Modares University (TMU).
Parchekani, who has a PhD in Biophysics from the TMU explained about his dissertation’s topic, saying, “Discovering a method to prevent cancer and early detection of it has always been of great importance.”
“Late detection of cancer can result in its spread to other body parts and infect other tissues through the metastasis, which takes place through the lymphatic or blood vessels to distant sites. When metastasis occurs, the treatment becomes very difficult as it becomes a malignancy,” the TMU researcher said.
He further noted that according to the World Health Organization’s statistics, breast cancer along with lung cancer are the most prevalent cancers among people worldwide, adding that the breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer among Iranian women.
Perchakani went on to recall that breast cancer can be seen in both women and men, but its prevalence is much higher in women than in men.
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