Aragon Pharmaceuticals is developing antihormonal cancer therapies to treat hormone-dependent cancers, such as prostate and breast cancer, which have become resistant to existing 1st generation antihormonal agents.
Traditional antihormonal treatments work by preventing hormone synthesis or blocking hormone receptors that drive tumor cell proliferation. Aragon is discovering and developing drugs that target other nodal points of the nuclear hormone receptor lifecycle, such as nuclear translocation, DNA binding, and proteolytic turnover to reduce the number of functional receptors in the cell.
Aragon's lead drug candidate, ARN-509, is currently in Phase I/II trials for the treatment of castration-resistant prostate cancer. In addition, Aragon is designing and developing small-molecule agents called selective androgen receptor degraders (SARDs) and selective estrogen receptor degraders (SERDs) that prevent cancer growth by inhibiting hormone action on the receptor and inducing receptor degradation.