Based in Montreal, Canada, Montdorex Inc. is a privately-owned, precision medicine company, targeting the endo-exonuclease (EE) enzyme with proprietary mono-amidine and di-amidine EE inhibitors for anti-cancer and di-amidine analogs for anti-inflammatory applications.

– In oncology, EE is found in large amounts in cancer cells and its function is to repair DNA breaks that occur when cancer cells proliferate. Blocking this enzyme would cut off cancer growth. By inhibiting the EE enzyme, we believe our proprietary pentamidine analogs* have the potential to fight the DNA repair process and reduce the tumor ability to grow^1-5.

– The anti-inflammatory potential of pentamidine has also been well documented^6-7 but its use has been compromised due to its cytotoxicity. Montdorex believes that some of its proprietary pentamidine analogs** could provide potent anti-inflammatory effects and offer non-cytotoxic drugs with a safety profile appropriate for chronic, non-oncologic indications.

We believe that developing treatments based on our proprietary pentamidine analogs* could provide enhanced anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory agents in these two large markets in dire needs of innovative therapies. 

DNA Repair Process

The EE is found in large amounts in cancer cells and its function is to repair DNA breaks that occur when cancer cells proliferate. Blocking this enzyme would cut off cancer growth.

With a unique combination of proprietary expertise on EE enzyme and pentamidine, known to be active on cancer cells, Montdorex is well positioned to develop pentamidine analogs for breakthrough solutions in cancer therapy. The effectiveness and significance of DNA repair process in medicine has been recognized by the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2015 awarded jointly to Tomas Lindahl, Paul Modrich and Aziz Sancar “for mechanistic studies of DNA repair”.

Anti-inflammatory Properties

The effect of pentamidine as a potential anti-inflammatory agent is well documented. However, its development for anti-inflammation applications is limited by its cytotoxic effect.

With proprietary technology, we are able to identify pentamidine analogs that retain the anti-inflammation activity but reduce cytotoxicity to broaden our scope into gastrointestinal (GI) conditions, as well as liver disease.

* Anti-cancer proprietary pentamidine analogs: MTDX 203, MTDX 301 and MTDX 302

** Anti-inflammation proprietary pentamidine analogs: MTDX 401 and MTDX 402

¹Asefa et al (1998) Curr Genet 34:360-367; ²Choudhury et al (2007) MCB 300:215-226; ³Choudhury et al (2007) MCB  304:127-134; ⁴Choudhury et al (2007) Invest New Drugs 25:399-410; ⁵Chow et al (2003) MCT 3:911-918. ⁶Zhao et al (2017) Hepatology 66:922-935; ⁷Wu et al (2022) Frontiers in Pharmacology doi: 10.3389/fphar.2022.835081.