Seminal new study on the role of circulating tumour-cell clusters in end-of-life cancer patients underpins strong rationale for cluster dissociation in late-stage disease

BASEL, Switzerland, Oct. 16, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Page Therapeutics is a Swiss biotech company focused on blocking cancer progression across different stages of disease by disrupting cell-cell adhesion in cancer cells, a mechanism found to be key for maintaining a proliferative state as well as enabling metastatic disease spread. Today, they announce the publication of a groundbreaking study conducted by Prof. Nicola Aceto's team at the ETH Zurich in collaboration with the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, which lends further strong support to the endeavour of developing novel cancer therapies outside of well-trodden cell-killing pathways and the promise of applying this approach to a late-stage clinical setting as a priority.

The data published are based on a prospective cohort of 21 cancer patients and 10 controls without known malignancies, complemented by a retrospective validation cohort of 1,250 patients with cancer. Following an exceptionally rigorous pre-mortem observation and a rapid-autopsy protocol, investigators uncovered spikes of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in cancer patients, particularly large CTC clusters, observable shortly before death. This was followed by findings of large vessel occlusions in samples obtained through rapid autopsy. What is more, radiological evidence of macrovascular infiltration emerged as the strongest predictor of poor survival in the large validation cohort. 

Detailed work by Prof. Aceto and others over the past decade has shown that CTC clusters have a much higher propensity to form metastases compared to single CTCs. Building on this, the present study published in Nature Medicine (link) is groundbreaking in uncovering a link between the increased number and size of CTC clusters and vascular occlusions, strongly suggestive of vascular failure as a cause of death in cancer patients.

Page Therapeutics is developing new proprietary compounds designed to disrupt cell-cell adhesion in cancer cells, suppressing cell proliferation and the formation of CTC clusters. The present study underspins that this approach also holds promise in delaying life-threatening infiltrations of clusters into large vessels.

"The actual cause of death in carcinoma patients still lacks consensus" said Prof. Aceto, investigator of the study and co-founder of Page Therapeutics. "Observing spikes in CTC clusters shortly before death, the presence of tumour emboli in large vessels during autopsy, and radiological evidence of macrovascular infiltration as a strong predictor of overall survival raises the hypothesis that vascular failure could be directly linked to cancer mortality. With Page Therapeutics' new compounds, we have shown strong preclinical evidence of a survival benefit even in aggressive models where metastases were already seeded. The present study, alongside recent FDA guideline changes prioritizing overall survival as a primary endpoint in cancer drug trials, provides futher encouragement to pursue a comparably efficient validation of our approach in a late-stage cancer setting – as a stepping stone towards benefitting cancer patients across all disease stages. Along these lines, we look forward to moving our optimized, proprietary lead candidate to the clinic in the near future".

About Page

Page Therapeutics AG is a Swiss preclinical-stage biotechnology company spun out of ETH Zurich, based on the  groundbreaking science of Prof. Nicola Aceto. The company is developing novel therapies targeting cell–cell adhesion in cancer, aiming to suppress tumor proliferation, prevent disease spread, and improve overall survival across solid-tumour indications. 

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