
BASEL, Switzerland, Jan. 24, 2025 — PAGE Therapeutics, a biotech company focused on addressing the root cause of metastatic cancer spread, is pleased to announce the publication of clinical trial results. The research, conducted by Professor Nicola Aceto’s team at ETH Zurich, in collaboration with University Hospitals in Zurich, Liestal, and Basel, Switzerland, examined the effects of the cardiotonic agent digoxin (a common Na+/K+ ATPase inhibitor) on circulating tumor cell (CTC) clusters.

High numbers of CTC clusters in a patient’s blood correlate with a poor prognosis. Preclinical studies, including those by Professor Aceto, have demonstrated that CTC clusters are significantly more likely to metastasize than individual cells. Preclinical cancer models have shown that Na+/K+ ATPase inhibitors reduce CTC clusters and metastases, a concept underpinning PAGE Therapeutics’ founding.
This clinical study, published in *Nature Medicine*, shows this effect in humans for the first time. Nine patients with metastatic breast cancer received digoxin for a week and were compared to a control group. The primary endpoint—a reduction in CTC cluster size—was achieved, with a statistically significant average decrease of 2.2 cells per cluster.
This study was previously highlighted by *Nature Medicine* as one of eleven clinical trials potentially transformative for medicine in 2023.
PAGE Therapeutics holds an exclusive license for using digoxin and other Na+/K+ ATPase inhibitors to prevent or treat metastasis. The company is also developing proprietary compounds designed to more effectively break down CTC clusters, showing significantly improved activity than digoxin in preclinical models.
“This trial provides compelling evidence for using Na+/K+ ATPase inhibitors to disrupt CTC clusters in breast cancer,” stated Professor Aceto, the study’s principal investigator and PAGE Therapeutics co-founder. “Even with a low digoxin dose for just one week, we observed a statistically significant result. PAGE Therapeutics’ new compounds are already demonstrating far greater effectiveness in dissolving clusters and preventing metastasis in preclinical models. We are confident in translating these findings to human studies and are excited to advance this potentially groundbreaking approach.”
About Page
PAGE Therapeutics AG (‘Page’) is a Swiss preclinical-stage biotech company originating from ETH Zurich and founded on Professor Nicola Aceto’s pioneering research. Page focuses on vulnerabilities of circulating tumor cells and develops novel therapies to disrupt their clusters, inhibiting metastasis formation.
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