Nanobiotix has established preliminary preclinical proof-of-concept (POC) with its lead product NBTXR3 for a new program in immuno-oncology (IO).
According to the company’s website, Nanobiotix, based in Paris, is “an oncology focused nanomedicine company developing an innovative nanoparticle technology” and new tools for treating cancer utilizing a physical mode of action at the cellular level of the cancer cell.
The term “pre-clinical POC” means that the company has demonstrated positive feasibility for the therapeutic use of NBTXR3. The next step will be Phase 1 clinical trials to study the safety and effectiveness of the drug.
The company’s IO program is based on the concept that a patient’s immune system’s activity can be boosted and directed to recognize and attack tumor cells to successfully eliminate cancer cells.
According to the Nanobiotix, NBTXR3 nanoparticles work by increasing the delivered dose of radiotherapy to the patient’s tumor and decreasing collateral damage to the surrounding healthy tissue; thereby enhancing the power and effectiveness of radiotherapy.
NBTXR3 is currently being studied in patients with soft tissue sarcoma. The POC initial indications for NBTXR3 are: primary liver cancer, glioblastoma (a specific form of brain cancer), rectal cancer, prostate cancer; and head and neck cancers.
Preliminary experimental data shows that NBTXR3, in combination with radiotherapy, is superior to radiotherapy alone. This means that NBTXR3 has the potential to be used as a “vaccine” that turns the cancerous tumor into a therapeutic drug dosing mechanism within the patient’s body.
In a company press release, Nanobiotix CEO Laurent Levy said radiotherapy is a standard of care in oncology and widely researched for its potential to transform “cold” tumors into “hot” tumors. That occurence would lead to expanding the number of patients eligible for immuno-oncology.
“These promising preliminary proof-of-concept results show that NBTXR3 may have the power to not only destroy cancer cells more effectively than by radiotherapy alone, but also to enhance the immunogenicity of the tumor. This new program could potentially broaden the use of our product NBTXR3 beyond its current development plan and, if successful, increase the effectiveness of IO in more patients,” Levy said.
Nanobiotix expects a first market approval of NBTXR3 in Europe by the end of 2016.
