
Image: Tosk.com
Brian Frenzel is an accomplished private investor and serial entrepreneur who has excelled in the life sciences industry. Over the course of a career spanning more than 30 years, Brian Frenzel has successfully led a number of companies and now works with Tosk, Inc., SanBio Co. Ltd., and AnVent Enterprises.
Tosk, Inc. is a drug discovery and development company committed to improving outcomes for patients suffering from the painful and debilitating side effects of widely-used cancer therapies and to enhance treatment options for patients who have not benefited from therapy. Tosk has two patented drugs in development, TK-90 for mucositis side effect reduction and TK-39 for cardiotoxicity side effect reduction, and has two other drug discovery programs underway. Tosk calls them CompanionTM drugs because they are designed to be administered alongside existing therapies.
The Company’s other initiatives include TK-88, which is intended to selectively block the adverse side effects of platinum-based drugs such as carboplatin, cisplatin, and oxaliplatin, and TK-kRAS which targets the human kRAS oncogene. Platinum drugs are effective, front line therapies for ovarian, breast, cervical, lung, head and neck, endometrial, and esophageal cancers which, unfortunately, also cause kidney damage, peripheral nerve damage, and hearing loss.
Tosk’s mutant kRAS gene initiative focuses on blocking the effects of this important cancer growth promoter. Also, according to the US National Cancer Institute, an estimated 40 percent of cancer patients worldwide carry an autogenic kRAS gene that effectively negates the efficacy of EGFR-inhibitor cancer therapies, such as Erbitux® and Vectibix®, to fight the disease. A kRAS product could both prove effective in treating kRAS positive cancers, including 90% of pancreatic and 45% of colon cancers, as well as making EGFR inhibitors effective in patients who currently do not benefit from treatment.