A Spanish drug opens an unprecedented route against metastatic cancer and manages to reverse cases of liver metastasis

The company has just received 12.5 million euros from European Union to move forward with a clinical trial that is producing unexpectedly encouraging results in patients with metastatic cancer for whom there were no longer any treatment options.

The advance does not lie in directly attacking the tumour, but in targeting something that until now had been almost invisible to most treatments: its microenvironment. As Oncomatryx CEO, biochemist Laureano Simón, explains, the tumour protects itself behind a barrier of cells — fibroblasts — which blocks conventional therapies from entering and also creates an immunosuppressed environment that prevents the body itself from fighting it.

The new drug acts on this ‘shield’ with a precision Simón describes as ‘clean, specific and powerful’. By disabling fibroblasts, it not only weakens the primary tumour: it also dismantles the niches where metastases settle, preventing them from progressing.

The preliminary results have surprised even the team itself. In particularly aggressive tumours, such as pancreatic or liver tumours, and in patients with liver and lung metastases, significant improvements in survival have been observed and, in some cases, complete reversals of metastasis. One of the examples cited by Simón occurred in a patient with pancreatic cancer and liver metastasis — one of the most serious scenarios — whose lesions disappeared.

In addition to its effectiveness, the drug is being administered to people for whom all previous therapies had already failed and has minimal side effects, which, according to Simón, means ‘not only extending life, but extending it with hope’.

With this European financial boost, Oncomatryx takes a decisive step along a path that could open a new generation of treatments against metastasis, one of oncology’s major outstanding challenges.