Phoenix wins grant from Innovation Norway/Oslo Cancer Cluster
From the award ceremony. Ketil Widerberg (GM Oslo Cancer Cluster), Hanne Mette Kristensen (Senior Advisor Health, Biotech & Medtech at Innovation Norway), Per Sontum (CEO Phoenix Solutions AS) and Bjørn Klem (GM Oslo Cancer Cluster Incubator).
The Board of Directors of Phoenix Solutions is pleased to announce that the company has been awarded a 500 kNoK grant (60 kUSD) from Innovation Norway, through Oslo Cancer Cluster`s Oncology Innovation Call 2017. The grant is awarded to co-fund the project: “Development and Validation of a Clinical Platform for Acoustic Cluster Therapy (ACT®)”, a collaboration between Phoenix, Humanscan Co., Ltd. (KR) and Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) (US). Humanscan is a leading manufacturer of speciality ultrasound probes and will develop clinically applicable hardware, optimised to the needs of ACT®. TGen is a world leading institute for development of novel therapeutic regimes for treatment of pancreatic cancer, and will contribute with validation of the clinical platform in their state of the art pre-clinical models. CEO Per Sontum; "We are very pleased to receive this grant which will enable us to develop and validate an optimal ultrasound platform for clinical use of ACT®. In their respective fields, Humanscan and TGen both represent the cutting edge of science, and we are confident this will contribute to the clinical success of our program”. Humanscan CEO Sungmin Rhim; “We are excited to enter into this collaboration with Phoenix and participate in the development of ACT®. Ultrasound mediated, targeted drug delivery is an emerging therapy approach with great potential and we are delighted to be in the forefront of this development”. Prof. Haiyong Han (TGen); “We are pleased that this program becomes a reality and look forward to working with ACT®; the concept represents a novel approach to targeted drug delivery and looks very promising. TGen will contribute to this development with further, clinically relevant, pre-clinical validation”.
About TGen: Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) is a non-profit research institute with a major focus on development of new therapies for patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). The TGen team led the clinical development of one of the current standard of care regimens for this disease - the nab-paclitaxel + gemcitabine combination regimen, and they are currently involved in 13 clinical programs relevant to pancreatic cancer. TGen has also established a number of models for pancreatic cancer including patient derived xenograft (PDX) and KPC models, shown to closely recapitulate the human PDAC.
About Humanscan Co: Humanscan Co., Ltd is focused on development of innovative ultrasound transducers. They have a unique expertise within single crystal probes and was the first company to mass produce this class of transducers.
Phoenix Solutions is a Norwegian biotech company sprung out from GE Healthcare in 2013, currently developing a technology platform for targeted drug delivery – Acoustic Cluster Therapy (ACT®). ACT® is a unique approach to ultrasound mediated, targeted drug delivery – capable of enhancing significantly the clinical utility of a wide range of therapeutic molecules and nano-drugs for a wide range of clinical indications. Its primary mode of action is in defeating the vascular barrier, enhancing extravasation, distribution and uptake of drug in the targeted tissue, thereby increasing efficacy and/or reducing toxicity.
ACT® is generally indicated towards diseases where current clinical practice treats known, localized pathologies (e.g. solid tumours) with medicinal therapy, and where Standard of Care is being limited from an inability to deliver sufficiently high concentrations of drug to the tumour without excessive systemic toxicity. Phoenix is currently targeting the oncology segment, looking in particular at pancreatic, liver, triple negative breast and prostate cancers, and has extremely promising preclinical results so far.