I'm a scientist, but not a biotechnology engineer. As far as I understand, inhibiting EMT is a suggested strategy to overcome gemcitabine resistance, and MDK induces EMT. So inhibiting MDK would also be one potential option to inhibit EMT, thus indicating that a combo therapy might work.
Anyway, it's not the first time MDK was mentioned as a cause to chemotherapy resistance. We have previously learned there are similar studies in the context of cisplatin: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-13431-y
My personal bet on MDK in the cancer space is based on several aspects.
As we know, midkine antibodies could inhibit MDK and therefore potentially
a) prevent metastasis (referring to CNIO's breakthrough regarding skin cancer), while
b) potentially being effective against cancer by itself (as shown by Cellmid), and
c) preventing cancer cells from being resistant to several current chemotherapy drugs.
To me it sounds like an effective MDK antibody has the potential to become standard treatment for cancer, making the company owning it worth in the billions. I guess that is my enthusiasm about it, despite midkine still being research mostly.
(20min delay)