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Physician-led individual treatment · Metabolic cancer therapy

Starve the tumour. Give the immune system time.

ARGEA removes arginine from the bloodstream, an amino acid most cancer cells cannot make for themselves, using the long-acting enzyme NGA-8000. Held under metabolic stress for 24 weeks, the tumour stops growing, weakens, and becomes vulnerable to your own immune system and to any therapy combined with it.

Request eligibility review How it works
Arginine removal in the blood: healthy cells make their own arginine, tumour cells lacking ASS1 or OTC are starved. BLOODSTREAM Arginine NGA-8000 arginase Ornithine target < 10 µmol/L Healthy cell ASS1 + OTC active makes its own arginine Tumour cell starved ASS1 or OTC missing depends on supply own synthesis no supply
The enzyme converts arginine in the blood to ornithine. Cells with an intact urea cycle (ASS1, OTC) compensate; many tumour cells cannot.
OnsetWithin hoursBlood arginine falls below the detection limit after the first dose.
Duration24 weeksSustained deprivation, reviewed at weeks 8, 16 and 24.
DosingOnce a weekOne visit of about an hour for the long-acting enzyme.
CombinationWith standard therapyChemotherapy, immunotherapy or radiation, at your oncologist's discretion.

How it works

Why tumours depend on arginine, what the enzyme does, and what happens inside a cancer cell over 24 weeks.

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Is this for me?

Tumour types, stages and conditions where arginine deprivation can be considered, and where it cannot.

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Evidence

The Phase III trial behind the principle, the approved sister enzyme, and the early observations with NGA-8000.

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Your journey

Week by week: first dose, monitoring, reviews, combinations with your existing treatment.

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Costs

EUR 250,000 for the 24-week course, billed in three blocks. What it covers, when it is due, and why insurers do not pay.

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All your questions

Diet, supplements, travel, side effects, stopping, working with your oncologist. 52 answers.

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A tumour that cannot feed itself

Healthy cells make arginine through the urea cycle. Many cancers have switched off the enzymes needed for this, ASS1 or OTC, and depend entirely on arginine from the blood. Remove it there, and those cells enter a sustained state of starvation while healthy tissue keeps its own supply.

Dormancy

Growth stops

Blood arginine drops within hours. Tumour cells shut down protein synthesis and division.

Autophagy

Cells consume themselves

To survive, cancer cells digest their own components. Mitochondria fail, oxidative stress rises.

Fragility

Open to combined therapy

Weakened cells are more sensitive to low-dose chemotherapy, checkpoint inhibitors or radiation.

Exhaustion

Cell death and clearance

Prolonged deprivation ends in cell death. The immune system has time to clear what remains.

Read the full mechanism, including selectivity, resistance and the role of combinations →

What the data show

Phase III, positiveThe bacterial enzyme ADI-PEG 20 added to chemotherapy extended median survival in pleural mesothelioma from 7.7 to 9.3 months (ATOMIC-Meso, JAMA Oncology 2024).
Approved enzymePegzilarginase, a recombinant human arginase, received EU approval in 2023 for arginase-1 deficiency.
NGA-8000Longer half-life, lower immunogenicity, wider tumour range. More than 100 patients treated. Of the five documented observations, four showed falling tumour markers, one of them back in the reference range by day 37, and no adverse events were reported. No controlled trial yet.

All studies, observations and references →

How ARGEA works with you

You send your records. The treating physicians review them. If arginine deprivation is a reasonable option in your case, you receive a full written disclosure, a cost overview and time to decide. Treatment runs for 24 weeks with reviews at weeks 8, 16 and 24, in coordination with your own oncologist.

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