About Us

• History
• Board of Directors
• Management Team
• Careers

About Us: History

History in Brief
The company was founded in Chile to research and develop innovative and effective treatments against cancer. Andes Biotechnologies has developed a new proprietary technology based on the discovery of a novel family of RNA targets of mitochondrial origin that when disrupted by RNAi they selectively destroy cancer cells. The company is leveraging the value of this technology with a management team with significant experience in biotech product development, an outstanding RNA research team and a robust network of key national and international collaborators in the cancer field.

Bullet Points about Andes

    Core Technology: Oligonucleotides targeting non-coding mitochondrial RNAs
    Disease focus: Cancer
    Clinical status: Preclinical (therapeutics), Clinical-investigator led (Diagnostics)
    Founded: 2008 by Pablo Valenzuela, Luis Burzio and Artuto Yudelevich
    Number of employees: 28
    Funds raised: $4 million (VC), $1 millon (Grants)
    Investors: Aurus Bios and Austral Capital
    CEO: Cristian Hernandez-Cuevas
   Patents: 3 issued patents (including the EU) covering compositions of matter and the diagnostic and therapeutic uses of non-coding mitochondrial RNA and oligonucleotide that target the RNA

Why Cancer?
The World Health Organization has stated that cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide, with 12.4 million new incidents of cancer per year and causing around 7,9 million deaths per annum.  There are 28 million cancer patients alive within 5 years of the initial diagnosis.  Only in the United States was estimated that about half a million Americans died of cancer in 2008, while over 1,4 million new cases were diagnosed during the same year.  Moreover, the estimated cancer incidence rate is expected to rise by 50% in 2030.

Therefore, the global cancer market represents one of the largest pharmaceutical markets in the world. The average net cost associated to cancer treatment vary from US$ 4,000 to more than US$ 8,000 per patient per year, depending on the type of cancer, the maturity of the cancer at diagnosis, the type of care and average survival rates.  Thus, worldwide, the potential market for an effective cancer drug is larger than 50 billion dollars a year, with some studies forecasting marketsizes of up to 75 billion dollars a year.

What are we doing next?
The family of compounds developed by Andes Biotechnologies has shown to selectively destroy cancer cells in vitro and in vivo cancer models.  Therefore, Andes Biotechnologies plans to:

a) Complete studies to show efficacy of Andes candidate drugs in animal cancer models.

b) Test several approaches to improve targeting and delivery of selective Andes drugs.

c) Complete preclinical toxicology and pharmacology studies in animals required for Phase I clinical studies in humans.

Once the development program has reached this stage, the company aims to negotiate licensing agreements with international pharmaceutical companies with interest in oncology. Andes Biotechnologies is also open to consider the possibility of joint-ventures in some cancer fields or in some territories, like in Latin America.