Halberd Corporation spins off new subsidiary to take unconventional approach to cancer treatment.
Jackson Center, Pennsylvania-based Halberd Corporation has created a subgroup of researchers to focus on cancer. The company otherwise focuses on neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, PTSD/Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, traumatic brain injury, epilepsy, depression, suicide ideation and others. It eventually expects the new subgroup to be spun off as a separate company.
“Our earlier experience with the development of cancer antibodies, coupled with the recent successes we demonstrated eliminating targeted inflammatory cytokines, proteins, etc., leads me to believe that this may be the first step towards developing a cure for a wide variety of cancers,” said Dr. Mitchell S. Felder, M.D., chief technology officer at Halberd and a board-certified neurologist. “Our plan is to develop three major cancer antibodies (PD-1, BTLA and CTLA-4) that could be used to effectively eradicate many cancers while employing Halberd’s patented extra-corporeal (outside the body) eradication methodology. We plan to test these antibodies for efficacy in the laboratory, near term.”
The subgroup has already developed an anti-PD-1 antibody that could potentially be combined with a metallic moiety and then eliminated via laser irradiation. The goal, Felder says, is to develop more effective cancer therapies without the negative side effects seen with many current treatments. Preclinical animal testing will follow confirming laboratory tests.
In February, the company announced it had used its extracorporeal laser exposure technology platform to successfully eliminate glutamate from cerebral spinal fluid (CSF), the tenth antigen it had demonstrated it could control using the technology. These top 10 antigens are all associated with various neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, epilepsy and others. The same month, it reported it had used the platform to reduce and control the level of tau proteins in CSF. Tau is also associated with Alzheimer’s disease, as well as other tauopathies, such as Pick disease.
It has also demonstrated the ability to eliminate IL-1 (interleukin-1) from synthetic CSF. IL-1 is tied to numerous diseases, including multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s. The technologies are similar to a type of dialysis treatment, where the blood or fluids are filtered to eliminate specific molecules or pathogens.
Halberd’s approach to cancer is similar, using a sequential dialysis technique. In it, the company proposes a process where the cancer patient’s blood is leveraged to remove metastatic cancer cells by sequentially dialyzing the patient’s blood extra-corporeally. It will use designer antibodies to “physically remove the pathophysiologic basis of the disease.”
In cancer, there would be physical attachment followed by physical removal of the metastasizing cancer cells. Halberd hypothesizes that this might potentially increase the efficacy of other cancer treatments by allowing higher doses of anti-cancer drugs used by way of the extra-corporeal method — meaning the blood would be exposed to the cancer drugs while undergoing a hemodialysis-like process outside the body, protecting the other cells in the body from direct exposure.
“We believe that the creation of a separate cancer treatment division of the Halberd Corporation is a viable and prudent step in creating not only a more effective and less debilitating treatment for cancer but for creating tremendous shareholder value. We remain dedicated to continuing our current focus to eradicate neurodegenerative diseases via lasers, chemical bonding and radio frequency methods, now being further advanced via animal testing. We will not dilute our priority neurodegenerative disease focus while getting the cancer subgroup up and running with additional resources,” William A. Hartman, Halberd’s chairman, president and chief executive officer, said.
