Oncology Overview

In 1971, President Nixon declared a 'War on Cancer.' Nearly forty years and $310 billion in taxpayer dollars and donations later, there will be nearly 8 million cancer deaths and 11 million new cases of cancer worldwide this year. Due to environmental factors, lifestyle choices, and the aging population, within the next ten years cancer rates will escalate to epidemic proportions. In fact, cancer is the second leading cause of death in the industrialized nations of the world today, trailing only heart disease.

More specifically, lung cancer is the most lethal of cancers worldwide, and will soon cause more than 4 million deaths annually. This number is increasing. Only one in ten patients diagnosed with this disease (mostly early stage patients) will survive five years. In 2008, the American Cancer Society estimated that 215,000 cases of lung cancer would be diagnosed in the United States in 2008 and that approximately 160,000 people would die from it.

More women die of lung cancer than of breast and ovarian cancers combined and more men die of lung cancer than of colorectal and pancreatic cancers combined. In countries such as the US, China, France, the UK, the Czech Republic, and India, pollutants, genetic factors, and smoking rates have increased non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) prevalence in both smokers and non-smokers.

Though lung cancer is the most deadly form of cancer in both sexes, breast cancer is another leading cause of cancer deaths in women today and is the most common cancer among women, excluding nonmelanoma skin cancers. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 1.2 million people will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year worldwide.

The second leading cause of cancer deaths in men today is colorectal cancer. Someone dies of colorectal cancer every 9.3 minutes and upwards of 3.4 million people worldwide will be diagnosed with it this year. Moreover, brain (glioma), ovarian, prostate, and pancreatic cancers represent several of the most invasive cancers with over 2.7 million worldwide diagnoses per year, combined.

Clearly, there is an unmet need for any viable, non-toxic new treatment that can be developed for use in NSCLC and other cancers, such as breast, prostate, colorectal, glioma, and ovarian. NovaRx hopes to fill this unmet need through the development of the Company's core technologies, such as Lucanix®, Glionix™, and a universal vaccine.