Nanotherapeutic targets tumors in lung cancer patients, saves healthy cells

A French nanomedicine company developing a novel cancer therapeutic to strategically destroy tumors in lung […]

A French nanomedicine company developing a novel cancer therapeutic to strategically destroy tumors in lung cancer patients to improve survival rates has forged a research collaboration with an East Coast hospital.

Nanobiotix’s two-year research collaboration is with Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals in Philadelphia, the only U.S. hospital conducting a preclinical trial with nanoXray therapeutics, said Dr. Bo Lu in a phone interview.  Lu is a professor and director of Jefferson’s Department of Radiation Oncology’s division of molecular radiation biology.

One benefit of using nanoparticles with radiation therapy is it may not require as much radiation to kill the tumors because it is a more targeted approach, Lu said. Currently, patients with soft tissue sarcoma require massive doses of radiation that can kill the cancer cells, but also damages healthy tissue as well.

Nanobiotix’s lead nanoXray therapeutic, NBTXR3, is injected into the tumor or the region of it and activated by radiation therapy. The nanoparticles are designed to strategically destroy tumors in soft tissue sarcoma patients by accumulating in cancer cells and releasing electrons that produce free radicals to counteract the cancer cells, enhancing the effectiveness of radiation therapy within tumor cells.

Dr Lu said mice would be used to establish preclinical evidence for this approach and if successful, the hospital may work with the company on a Phase 1 clinical trial.

The nanoXray therapeutic is categorized as a medical device in Europe where it is in Phase 1 development. In the U.S., it is classified as a drug.

The company is a spinoff from the State University of New York in Buffalo and was incorporated in 2003, according to a company statement.

 

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