Kick-off for the Innovative "TheraMe!" Innosuisse project
The laboratory of Biomedical Microfluidics (LBMM) was awarded with an Innosuisse grant, which started on August 1st 2021.
The project "TheraMe! - Microfluidic IVD for personalized cancer therapy" is an 18 month ambitious and innovative project in personalized medicine, which aims to exploit microfluidic screening technology to guide clinical decision making. The platform will deliver prioritized treatment options within 24h after taking biopsies, at consumables costs of less than 150 US$.
With ~17 million new diagnoses, 9.6 million deaths and total economic costs of 1.14 trillion US$ per year, cancer is a major burden for society. One reason for the high mortality and cost is due to the fact that every tumor responds different to medication. Even worse, tumors rapidly change their response to drugs over time and develop resistances. This leaves patients in the highly uncomfortable position to undergo suboptimal standard therapies with unclear outcome and high mortality. What is needed is a system allowing to test which drug or drug combination works best on the tumor cells of a given patient at a given point in time. This is exactly the concept of TheraMe! (www.besttherapyforme.com; previously awarded with a German EXIST grant of 820k EUR). Using proprietary microfluidic technology protected by two granted US patents (14/344,478 and 15/579,834), we determine the best therapy options directly on live tumor samples from patients. Results are available within 24h after resecting a tumor or taking a biopsy at significantly lower costs than those for standard diagnostic procedures such as MRI scans or companion diagnostics tests.
However, further research is needed to find out how human pancreatic and colorectal cancer patients (our primary target indications) could benefit best. On one hand, data on the correlation of in vitro and in vivo data is needed, on the other hand we have to understand which drugs work best in combination therapy.
These are the last missing steps to enable the establishment of a startup company in Switzerland, as confirmed through feedback from potential future customers, such as large diagnostics laboratories, clinical centers and pharma industry. We envisage 12.5mio CHF turnover and 6.25mio CHF profit three years after launching the startup, with further exponential growth potential. The implementation will be facilitated by experience gained through a previous successful startup of ours (www.velabs-therapeutics.com).
Innosuisse, grant 47943.1_IP-LS
total funding: 464 kCHF