Clinical stage specialty pharmaceutical company Vascarta Inc announced on Monday that it has obtained the exclusive rights to a novel method of creating more effective cancer therapies with fewer side effects by implementing new and unique linker chemistry developed by the City College of New York (CUNY).

CUNY's novel, patent-pending technology licensed by Vascarta involves linking proven anti-cancer therapeutics such as paclitaxel (Taxol), gemcitabine (Gemzar), doxorubicin (Adriamycin), and methotrexate (Jylamvo) with curcumin. Linking the anti-cancer agents to curcumin optimises the effectiveness of both agents. The linker was designed to undergo breakage once the compound enters a cell.

Dr. Probal Banerjee (inventor of the linker chemistry and professor of Chemistry, Biochemistry, and Neuroscience at CUNY) said: "These new linked molecules are showing greatly increased anti-cancer efficacy, offering the possibility for a new cancer treatment paradigm."

Dr. Joel Friedman, professor, Department of Microbiology & Immunology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and scientific founder & chief scientific officer of Vascarta, added: "Linked curcumin-chemotherapeutic compounds enhances curcumin's bioavailability facilitating more convenient, non-parenteral administration in patients as well as reducing unwanted side effects."