ONCOCUR starts clinical assessment of nano-curcumin for oral cancer prevention

Pune: A major cause of morbidity and mortality, cancer has now become a threat to global health. Approximately few thousand people die in India alone every day due to cancer and many millions in a year globally. In the recent years, various types of cancers are growing at an alarming pace and millions of new patients are being affected by this disease, causing them both physical and emotional pain. More than 100 new cancer treatments have been launched in the past decade, however, the mortality rates remain high with the incidence of recurrences still haunting cancer patients along with debilitating side effects of the treatments.

In this backdrop, the Pune based startup, ONCOCUR has commenced the clinical study on nanocurcumin for oral cancer prevention at a leading hospital in Delhi NCR. Incorporated in 2016, the company aims to bring medicinal benefits of Curcumin under the trademark name BRECAN for advanced cancer care and cancer prevention.

Founded by a leading Cambridge and Cornell educated nano-biotechnology scientist, Dr Vijay Kanuru, the ONCOCUR India is the world’s first emerging onco-nutrition company that develops novel and clinically tested Curcumin based therapeutic nutraceuticals exclusively for cancer patients. These products improve the outcomes of the cancer treatment such as better tolerance, management and quality of life.

The cancer patients grapple with the adverse effects of chemo-radiation-surgery treatments during the course and are later on haunted by secondary malignancies, metastasized recurrences to other parts of the body. This is predominantly due to the fact that the cancer treatments invariably induce chronic inflammation and damages the essential immune system, which leads to debilitating side effects and degeneration. As a result, cancer patients are under constant fear of relapses even after successful primary treatments.

As per Dr Vijay Kanuru, CEO, ONCOCUR India, “No safer drugs available nor warranted for these treatment induced debilitating side effects as the patients are already in enormous distress due to immune suppression and not in a position to tolerate any more harmful drugs, eventually they are forced to opt some random alternative treatments and substandard dietary supplements. There is emerging evidence for the importance of plant-based diet synergistic to the standard treatments. Therefore, the need for standardized and clinically proven therapeutic onco- nutrition becomes imperative for the conditions like side-effects tolerance and relapse management.”

BRECAN scientifically designed effective curcumin onco-nutrition

Research studies demonstrate that the multi-functional anti-inflammatory super food, curcumin has the potential to address the onco-nutritional requirements, however, not yet proven under clinical settings largely due to its poor bio-availability, metabolic activity and water insolubility. ONCOCUR has researched over five years and developed Turmeric extract Curcumin into water soluble, bio-available and highly effective nutraceutic food supplement BRECAN for advanced cancer care. BRECAN is used for reducing cancer treatment side effects, strengthening immune system, improving quality of life.

One BRECAN capsule equivalent to 20-30 commercial curcumin capsules

As there is no safer prescriptive medicine for wider indications such as controlling degenerative side effects and recurring metastases, onco-nutrition is the only hope for cancer patients. ONCOCUR’s founder says its curcumin based tested nutritional adjuvant, BRECAN would be of great help in maximizing the anti-cancer benefits of curcumin for cancer patients.

BRECAN is a bio-active nano-curcumin formulation and each capsule is equivalent to 20-30 commercial curcumin supplements in the market. BRECAN can be used to improve the quality of life in palliative care, for those patients who are not fit for surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy due to old age, weakness and collaterally damaging nature of the treatments.

Prevention is better than cure

Given the failure of cancer drugs and alarming rise of cancers, mortality rates it is imperative to develop new and effective strategies like nutraceticals interventions as immediate interim measure for prevention of cancers. India tops the incidence of oral cancers in the world predominantly due to the use of tobacco chewing especially very popular among youth. Most of the affected population belongs to low income groups peasant farmers, construction workers, Industrial labour and vehicle drivers. Their livelihoods are affected and the families are devastated once they are diagnosed with cancer given the exorbitant costs and trauma.

Research shows that turmeric extract curcumin have tremendous anti-cancer potential however it has to be formulated essentially in a way that is available at cellular level, biologically- pharmacologically active to validate its efficacy in the clinical settings.

ONCOCUR’s ingenious and audacious attempt is first of its kind in the world, to evaluate nano-curcumin’s efficacy against oral pre-cancerous conditions. “We hope this study will be successful and the pave way for the development of prophylactive medicines for oral cancer,” says Dr Kanuru adding: “We envisage our nano-curcumin formulation will benefit lakhs of cancer risk patients, who are predominantly from economically poor, illiterate, socially marginalized backgrounds. Given the fact they are the backbone of nation’s workforce for an emerging economy like India, the success of this study has profound national health implications.”