Some of the most important advances in cancer care are not new

When we think about innovation in oncology, our attention naturally turns to new drugs, new targets, and breakthrough discoveries. Yet many of the greatest improvements in patient care have come from a different source: making existing therapies work better.

Across oncology, researchers are improving outcomes not only by replacing established treatments, but by optimizing how they are delivered, dosed, combined, sequenced, and applied. The result is often greater precision, lower toxicity, and better clinical outcomes — built on biology we already understand.

Across oncology, this shift is driving meaningful advances in a wide range of treatment approaches, from radiation and chemotherapy to surgery and endocrine therapy.

Delivering Radiation More Precisely

Radiation therapy has been a cornerstone of cancer treatment for decades. Its effectiveness stems from its ability to damage the DNA of cancer cells, preventing them from dividing and ultimately causing them to die, while aiming to preserve as much healthy tissue as possible. Today’s radiopharmaceuticals are refining, not replacing, that approach by delivering radiation directly to tumor cells through highly specific biological targets.

Unlike conventional external beam radiotherapy, which delivers radiation from outside the body to a defined treatment area, radiopharmaceuticals are administered systemically and circulate through the bloodstream. They consist of a radioactive isotope linked to a targeting molecule that selectively binds to proteins expressed on cancer cells, delivering radiation directly to the tumor while limiting exposure to surrounding healthy tissue.

Approved therapies such as lutetium Lu 177 dotatate (Lutathera) for gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors and lutetium Lu 177 vipivotide tetraxetan (Pluvicto) for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer demonstrate how greater precision can improve outcomes while limiting damage to healthy tissue. Pivotal trials have shown that lutetium Lu 177 dotatate and lutetium Lu 177 vipivotide tetraxetan improve clinically meaningful outcomes with manageable safety profiles, supporting their role as precise radiopharmaceutical therapies in neuroendocrine tumors and metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer.[3] The field is also advancing through theranostics, where the same target is used for both imaging and treatment, helping physicians identify patients most likely to benefit before therapy begins.

The principle is simple: the radiation is familiar. The way it is delivered is changing. [1][2]

Optimizing Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy has long relied on the principle of administering the maximum tolerated dose (MTD) to maximize tumor cell killing, followed by treatment-free intervals that allow healthy tissues to recover.

Metronomic chemotherapy takes a different approach. Instead of high doses administered intermittently, it delivers low doses more frequently and continuously, often using oral regimens that enable continuous treatment to maintain therapeutic pressure on the cancer while reducing treatment-related toxicity.

This shift also changes how the chemotherapy works. In addition to targeting rapidly dividing cancer cells, continuous low-dose treatment can inhibit tumor angiogenesis, modulate the tumor microenvironment, and enhance anti-tumor immune responses.

Clinical evidence suggests these biological effects can translate into meaningful patient benefit. In a meta-analysis of more than 1,300 patients with metastatic breast cancer, metronomic chemotherapy achieved a clinical benefit rate exceeding 55%, while maintaining a favorable safety profile. Improved tolerability may also support better treatment adherence and quality of life, particularly for older adults and patients with significant comorbidities.[4]

Another important example of chemotherapy optimization is the development of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs). Rather than changing the cytotoxic payload itself, ADCs improve how chemotherapy is delivered by linking potent anticancer drugs to monoclonal antibodies that selectively recognize tumor-associated antigens. While approved ADCs have validated this approach clinically, researchers continue to optimize their design (including the antibody, linker, payload, and dosing strategy) to maximize tumor delivery while minimizing toxicity and resistance. [3]

The drugs themselves have not changed; the innovation lies in how they are dosed and deployed.

Making Surgery More Precise

Surgery remains one of the most effective treatments for many solid tumors. Its success depends not only on removing the tumor, but on achieving clear surgical margins while preserving as much healthy tissue as possible.

Advances in surgical technology are improving how these goals are achieved. Robotic-assisted platforms, fluorescence-guided imaging, and artificial intelligence are enabling surgeons to visualize tumors with greater accuracy and make more informed intraoperative decisions.

Fluorescence-guided surgery uses tumor-targeting imaging agents that emit light under near-infrared imaging, helping distinguish malignant tissue from surrounding healthy structures in real time. Artificial intelligence can further support surgical planning and intraoperative decision-making by identifying suspicious tissue and enhancing image interpretation.

Early clinical studies suggest these technologies can improve tumor visualization, increase rates of complete tumor resection, and reduce residual disease, with the potential to decrease repeat surgeries and improve patient outcomes.[5]

The drive toward greater precision is also accelerating the development of non-invasive alternatives. Ultrasound, long used as a diagnostic imaging tool, is now being developed as a therapeutic platform through approaches such as focused ultrasound and histotripsy. By concentrating acoustic energy on defined areas of tissue, these techniques aim to destroy tumors without surgical incisions, illustrating the same principle: the technology is familiar, but its application is more precise and more powerful.

The objective of surgery has not changed. The innovation lies in helping clinicians achieve it with greater precision, and, in some cases, with less invasive approaches.

Personalizing Endocrine Therapy

Endocrine therapy demonstrates how decades of biological understanding can be translated into personalized cancer therapies.

Endocrine therapy has been a cornerstone of treatment for hormone receptor-positive breast cancer for decades. By blocking estrogen signalling or reducing estrogen production, therapies such as tamoxifen and aromatase inhibitors help prevent tumor growth and reduce the risk of recurrence.

Today, the focus is increasingly on optimizing who receives which therapy, and for how long. Clinical evidence suggests that extending endocrine therapy beyond five years can further reduce recurrence risk in selected patients, while ovarian function suppression combined with endocrine therapy provides additional benefit for some postmenopausal women at higher risk of recurrence. In some studies, combining endocrine therapy with ovarian function suppression reduced the risk of invasive breast cancer recurrence by approximately 40%.[6]

The biological target has not changed; the innovation lies in tailoring treatment to the patients most likely to benefit.

Why Optimization Matters

One of the greatest advantages of refining established therapies is that researchers are not starting from scratch.

These treatments are supported by decades of biological understanding, well-characterized safety profiles, and extensive clinical experience. Rather than first having to establish whether a therapeutic principle works, researchers can focus on improving how it works.

This means asking questions such as:

• Can treatment be delivered more precisely?
• Can side effects be reduced?
• Can patient selection be improved?
• Can therapies be combined or sequenced more effectively?
• Can treatment duration be tailored to individual risk?

Answering these questions can accelerate clinical adoption, improve therapeutic performance, and deliver meaningful benefits to patients without reinventing the underlying biology.

The Future May Be Smarter, Not Just Newer

Discovery will always remain essential to advancing cancer care. But innovation extends well beyond discovering new therapies; it also includes finding better ways to use the ones we already have.[7]

As this article illustrates, meaningful advances can also emerge from refining treatments that are already part of clinical practice, improving how they are delivered, dosed, personalized, and applied.

Ultimately, patients do not benefit from novelty for its own sake. They benefit from therapies that are safer, more effective, more precise, and better suited to their individual disease.

At Helix BioPharma, we believe meaningful innovation begins with a strong biological foundation. By building on established science and continuously optimizing how therapies are delivered, combined, and deployed, we aim to develop smarter approaches that address current treatment limitations and bring meaningful benefits closer to patients, faster.

 

Ref:

1. Taunk NK, Escorcia FE, Lewis JS, Bodei L. Radiopharmaceuticals for Cancer Diagnosis and Therapy: New Targets, New Therapies-Alpha-Emitters, Novel Targets. Cancer J. 2024;30(3):218-223. doi:10.1097/PPO.0000000000000720

2. Radiopharmaceuticals emerging as new cancer therapy. Cancer.gov. October 26, 2020. Accessed June 8, 2026. https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2020/radiopharmaceuticals-cancer-radiation-therapy

3. Liu, K., Li, M., Li, Y. et al. A review of the clinical efficacy of FDA-approved antibody‒drug conjugates in human cancers. Mol Cancer 23, 62 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12943-024-01963-7

4. Muthusamy P, Chary KV, Nalini GK. Metronomic Chemotherapy: Seems Prowess to Battle against Cancer in Current Scenario. J Clin Diagn Res. 2016;10(11):FC09-FC13. doi:10.7860/JCDR/2016/23782.8802

5. Advancing Cancer Therapy. Nat Cancer 2, 245–246 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43018-021-00192-x

6. Hong Kong Journal of radiology. Hkjr.org. Accessed June 8, 2026. https://www.hkjr.org/article/v6n3/advances2

7. Zafar A, Khatoon S, Khan MJ, Abu J, Naeem A. Advancements and limitations in traditional anti-cancer therapies: a comprehensive review of surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and hormonal therapy. Discov Oncol. 2025;16(1):607. Published 2025 Apr 24. doi:10.1007/s12672-025-02198-8

Jacek Antas

Chief Executive Officer

Jacek Antas is a shareholder of the Company, has spent more than 25 years in the financial services industry holding various positions in sales and consulting.

Mr. Antas obtained a master’s degree from the Warsaw School of Economics and has served as a board member of various
companies throughout his career.

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James B. Murphy

Chief Financial Officer

Mr. Murphy is a certified public accountant with over thirty years of experience in finance and operations management. He is currently a consultant with Danforth Advisors LLC (“Danforth”), a leading provider of outsourced strategic and operational specialists across functions in the life sciences industry. While at Danforth, Mr. Murphy has served over fifteen private and publicly held life sciences companies as CFO and CFO Advisor, helping them secure over USD 0.5 billion in financing and successfully execute pivotal asset transactions. Mr. Murphy functions as a consultant to Helix pursuant to a consulting agreement between the Company and Danforth.

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Thomas Mehrling

Medical Adviser

Thomas Mehrling (PhD in Pharmacology and MD) has over 20 years’ experience in multinational Pharma companies developing novel oncology compounds from preclinical research through to registration. Prior to entering the industry, he spent 13 years as an MD at the University Hospital in Frankfurt, working on preclinical and translational projects. He served as Director of European Oncology at Mundipharma International (2003–2013), building the company’s first European oncology business from the ground up out of Cambridge, UK, and completing the clinical development, registration and launch of two major products in Europe, DepoCyte® and Levact® (Ribomustin® and Treanda®). In 2013, he led the establishment of the Mundipharma Group’s start-up, Mundipharma EDO, developing anti-cancer therapeutics for solid tumours out of Basel, Switzerland.

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Kim Gaspar

Director Quality Assurance

Kim is the Director of Quality Assurance at Helix BioPharma Corp. An experienced quality assurance professional with expertise in Canadian, US, and EU regulations, she has been involved in all aspects of Phase I/II biopharmaceutical product development over the years, including regulatory submissions, QC laboratory compliance, tech transfer and third-party oversight of CMC activities, clinical QA, and bioanalytical data analysis. Kim joined Helix in 2000, transitioning into QA in 2003. She holds a B.Sc in Biochemistry and a Ph.D in Veterinary Physiological Sciences, both from the University of Saskatchewan.

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Brenda Lee

Director Clinical Operations

Brenda is the Clinical Operations Director at Helix Biopharma Corp. A clinical research operations professional with 25 years of experience managing clinical trials, ranging from early Phase I to late Phase IIIb/IV studies, she brings experience in clinical study protocol writing and development, trial start-up and vendor management, and a proven track record in planning and managing clinical trials to quality standards, timelines and budget. Brenda joined Helix Biopharma Corp. in 2018, working to advance the clinical program of L-DOS47. She holds B.Sc and M.Sc. degrees from the University of Toronto, specializing in Nutritional Sciences and Human Biology.

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Jerzy Leszczynski

Director

Jerzy Leszczynski is a shareholder of the Company, has spent more than 35 years developing businesses and has served in the capacity of board member of various real estate development companies. Mr. Leszczynski obtained his Master of Science in Chemistry from the Warsaw Institute of Technology.

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Janusz Grabski

Director, Chair of Audit Committee

Janusz (John) Grabski is a lawyer specialized in corporate and real estate law with over twenty years of experience.

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Malgorzata Laube

Director

Malgorzata Laube has over 19 years of experience in nuclear medicine. In her last role with Alberta Health Services, she was the Department Supervisor, Nuclear Medicine at Royal Alexandra Hospital. Ms. Laube obtained a MSc degree in Environmental Engineering from the Warsaw University of Technology and is based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

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Jacek Antas

Chairman of the Board

Jacek Antas is a shareholder of the Company, has spent more than 25 years in the financial services industry holding various positions in sales and consulting.

Mr. Antas obtained a master’s degree from the Warsaw School of Economics and has served as a board member of various
companies throughout his career.

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Jonathan Davis

Advisor, ADC Discovery

Jonathan Davis received his Ph.D. from University of California, San Francisco, where he studied protein structure and function using NMR. After a post-doc at Harvard Medical School exploring RNA selection and structure in the labs of Jack Szostak and Gerhard Wagner, he went to work at EMD Serono, where his work involved improving antibody-based therapeutics, inventing a platform technology for generating heterodimeric Fcs as a basis for multifunctional molecules, and developing a novel scaffold based on an artificially-designed protein from David Baker’s lab. In 2008 he took a job at Bristol-Myers Squibb in Waltham/Cambridge MA, working on antibody discovery and platform development in a wide range of therapeutic areas, with a particular focus on multispecific therapeutics. He moved to Madison, WI in 2019 to take on the role of VP of Innovation and Strategy at Invenra, a biotech focused on bispecific antibodies, and where he is currently head of the Scientific Advisory Board. In early 2024 he left the corporate world to found Creative Antibodies, a consulting firm that helps guide companies to successful antibody discovery and development projects, from mAbs to multispecifics, ADCs, and other formats. Outside of science, Jonathan is a conservatory trained cellist, plays numerous other instruments, and founded the UCSF Orchestra (now Symphony Parnassus) in San Francisco, where he was Music Director for six years.

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Davide Guggi

Advisor, CMC

Davide graduated as a pharmacist and received his PhD in Pharmaceutical Technology and Biotechnology from the University of Vienna. He has over 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, principally in the field of oncology. At the beginning of his career, Davide led oncology business units and commercial departments at Mundipharma and Gilead across Austria and Eastern Europe. Since over 10 years he has been working as a CMC expert, covering operational and regulatory CMC functions on behalf of over 20 different small- and medium-sized biotech companies across the world. He has served as CMC Director and CSO/CTO for several years, developing both small molecules and biologics (mABs, Fab, ADCs and Radio-immuno-conjugates) from early discovery to NDA/BLA in the US, EU and Canada, with a focus on First-in-Human and Phase I/II studies in oncology indications.

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Tumor Defense Breaker™, L-DOS47

L‑DOS47 is a first‑in‑class, clinical-stage antibody‑enzyme conjugate designed to deliver a game-changing assist to anti-cancer immunity and today’s leading cancer immunotherapies for the treatment of prevalent, hard-to-treat solid tumors. The compound precisely targets CEACAM6, a cell-surface protein overexpressed in non‑small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and other aggressive tumors, where it delivers an enzymatic payload that raises the extracellular pH of the acidic tumor microenvironment (TME). By neutralizing tumor acidity, L-DOS47 restores immune cell infiltration and activity, helps turn immunologically “cold” tumors “hot”, and enhances the therapeutic reach of immune checkpoint inhibitors. With patented composition-of-matter coverage through 2036 and demonstrated synergy with PD-1 inhibitor, pembrolizumab, L-DOS47 is poised to significantly increase the efficacy of immune checkpoint blockade and unlock broader and more durable responses in NSCLC and other aggressive solid tumors.



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LEUMUNA™

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GEMCEDA™

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