The Georgia Research Alliance has awarded a $100,000 grant that will bring French drug development company SISENE to Georgia Health Sciences University’s Life Sciences Business Incubator, in order to continue the development of its novel anti-tumor therapy in partnership with the GHSU Cancer Center. The grant will be matched by another investor and will help establish SISENE Oncology, Inc. in Augusta.
“The goal of GRA VentureLab grants is to stimulate the creation and expansion of high-growth companies in Georgia, based on laboratory discoveries at our partner universities, including GHSU,” said Dr. H. Lee Herron, Vice President of Commercialization for the Georgia Research Alliance. “We are excited about the potential of SISENE Oncology, Inc. and look forward to welcoming the company to Georgia.”
Work will focus on developing a new drug therapy targeting glioblastoma multiform, the most common type of malignant brain tumor, as well as other large solid tumors, including lung and colorectal cancers. The research team will be led by Dr. Olivier Rixe, Director of Experimental Therapeutics at the GHSU Cancer Center and Chief Scientific Officer of SISENE Oncology, Inc. The team will also include other GHSU Cancer Center and SISENE scientists, as well as researchers from the National Cancer Institute and the University of Cincinnati.
“As a research-based cancer center, we have a responsibility to help biotechnology companies, particularly those with promising new cancer therapies, improve the effectiveness of their treatments and make them available here in Georgia and around the world as quickly and safely as possible,” said Dr. Samir N. Khleif, Director of the GHSU Cancer Center. “This collaboration fits our academic and scientific mission perfectly, and we intend to establish many more such partnerships over the coming months.”
The team is investigating the use of the protein NOV C-ter, a new class of molecule that in animal studies has been found to be a highly effective anti-tumor agent, with fewer toxic effects. The molecule works by acting on a specific pathway to starve tumors and prevent the growth of new blood vessels. The hope is to have NOV C-ter through preclinical studies and to Phase I clinical trials by 2013.
Glioblastoma multiform is a highly aggressive brain tumor. According to the American Cancer Society, there are 18,500 new cases of malignant brain tumors in the U.S., with 12,760 deaths attributed to these brain tumors annually. Improvements in diagnostics have resulted in a 300 percent increase in the number of new cases of these tumors. Currently the median survival for GBM is about 18 months.
“In the last decade, collaborations such as these have resulted in many new developments in the treatment of brain tumors and other cancers,” said Dr. Rixe, who also leads the cancer center’s multidisciplinary neuro-oncology clinic. “NOV C-ter is a very exciting, very promising new agent, and our objective is to be able to bring this and other cutting edge treatments to the clinic, where they have the potential to improve the quality of life and life expectancy of our patients.”
“We are delighted to establish SISENE Oncology, Inc. in Georgia, particularly in such close proximity to our primary collaborator, Dr. Olivier Rixe, and other colleagues at the GHSU Cancer Center. We are also honored to have been selected for VentureLab funding from the GRA and very appreciative of our ability to locate in the Life Sciences Business Incubator at GHSU,” said Dr. Martine Garreau, General Manager of SISENE. “The support we have received from the Georgia life sciences community has been outstanding and bodes well for our future success here.”
About SISENE
SISENE is a biotechnology company developing patented innovative cancer drugs and opthalmalogic therapies. The company was founded in 2007 by Dr. Jean Plouet, a pioneer of angiogenesis research in France and the co-discoverer of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor. Although Plouet passed away in 2008, his final research discovery, a new non-VEGF anti-angiogenic pathway, forms the basis of SISENE. The company is led by SISENE President and CEO Dr. Jean Marsac and Chief Operating Officer and General Manager Dr. Martine Garreau.
About the Georgia Research Alliance
A model public-private partnership between Georgia universities, business and state government, the Georgia Research Alliance helps build Georgia’s technology-rich economy in three major ways: through attracting Eminent Scholars to Georgia’s research universities; through investing in sophisticated research tools; and through converting research into products, services and jobs that drive the economy. To learn more about GRA, visit www.gra.org.