Acoustic
Cluster Therapy (ACT®)
A technology platform for targeted therapeutic enhancement
Why?
A major limitation in treating a wide range of diseases is a consequence of insufficient concentrations of the treating drug penetrating the target site of action.
In the treatment of many cancers the doses of chemotherapy required to achieve a meaningful outcome are often limited by systemic side-effects.
This raises the question “What if we could deliver more drug to the target site, without administering more drug to the patient?”.
ACT® aims to answer this EXACT question.
Ultrasound mediated targeted drug delivery can significantly enhance the impact of precision health across geographies
The ACT® Bubble
The proprietary ACT® formulation (PS101) consists of negatively charged microbubbles and positively charged microdroplets and it is co-administered intravenously with a therapeutic agent. These highly engineered small (<5μm) microbubble-microdroplet clusters are free flowing in the bloodstream like regular contrast agents before insonation.
The ACT® formulation is optimised to achieve its therapeutic benefit through a two-step ultrasound process. Following the injection of the ACT® formulation, ultrasound is applied to the target site which converts microbubble-microdroplet clusters into a single larger ACT® bubbles, in a safe and controlled manner. These ACT® bubbles get trapped in the next capillary bed they flow into, transiently stopping blood flow for up to 10min.
The ultrasound settings are adjusted to low-frequency and the bubbles start to rapidly expand and contract; approximately 500 000 times per second. As a result, the larger bubble induces mechanical effects such as microstreaming and shear stress on the capillary wall which increases the local permeability of the vasculature and improves the transport of the co-administered therapy across the capillary wall and through the extracellular matrix (ECM) and thereby delivering substantially more therapeutic agent directly where it is needed. Ultrasound is applied only for a few minutes and after the larger bubbles dissolve where the gas is breathed out.
Since ACT® is only activated by the localised application of ultrasound, it is possible to precisely target therapeutic enhancement where it is required. The ultrasound energy levels used are lower than those commonly applied in foetal ultrasound imaging.
See the animation below to visualise how ACT® works in blood micro-vessels.
Note: Red area is a blood vessel; blue & orange spheres are the ACT® formulation; green stars are the therapeutic agent.
Proof of Concept
A range of preclinical studies have been completed evaluating ACT® with different chemotherapeutic regimens in models of pancreatic, colorectal, breast, and prostate cancer.
Across all models ACT® (combined with chemotherapy) induced significantly greater reduction in tumour volume, increased survival, and associated outcomes compared to controls (chemotherapy alone).
Initial work has shown that ACT® also has the potential to facilitate controlled opening of the blood brain barrier.
Visit our Publications section to read more about the scientific results of the ACT® platform.
Clinical Trials.
ACT® is currently in an international multi-center Phase I clinical trial.