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Solixia today announced that it has been awarded a $161,000 Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Cancer Institute.

Solixia's project, entitled "Targeted Radiotherapy of Ovarian Cancer with a Novel, High Payload Radioligand," aims to create a pharmaceutical agent capable of treating a disease that seldom responds to conventional chemotherapy.

"For the vast majority of women diagnosed with ovarian cancer, the standard of care, which is surgery followed by chemotherapy, does not work," explains Dr. Brian Smith, Solixia's Chief Science Officer. "Disease progression is inevitable, and mortality is very high. This is a reality that we hope to change."

This ambition resonated strongly with the National Cancer Institute's review panel. According to one reviewer of Solixia's proposal, "If this approach is successful, it has the potential to significantly improve the currently dismal prognosis for patients with ovarian cancer."

Solixia's approach, called radioimmunotherapy, uses special molecules to deliver radioactivity specifically to ovarian cancer cells. Despite its promise, radioimmunotherapy has generally failed to deliver enough radioactivity to solid tumors to attain a therapeutic response. Solixia's proprietary technology would circumvent this limitation to yield a first-in-class treatment.

"Radiotherapy is an attractive method of treatment for cancers that can dodge conventional drugs by having multiple, redundant biochemical pathways," says Dr. Smith. "With radiation, the therapeutic effect derives from the direct disruption of DNA, which is the cell's command center."

Solixia's SBIR award will support laboratory testing of Solixia's compound with the goal of achieving first-in-man studies in early 2012. The team also hopes to utilize these initial data to expand its technology to other imaging and treatment settings.

Source: Solixia