Theranostics – an innovative approach against cancer

During the past months, at Viromii we have been working with some innovative cancer therapies. Concretely, we have been working with a theranostic technology in the field of nanomedicines.

It is well known that, what we know as Cancer covers a set of more than 200 different diseases, each of them with very different physiology, medical approach, prognosis and results for the patients. Every year, there are around 20 million new cancer patients having a huge impact on the global economy, which was estimated in 2010 at approximately US$ 1.16 trillion.

Commonly, cancer treatments are based on radiotherapy, small-molecule chemotherapy, and tumor resection, but new therapies such as immunotherapies, personalized medicine, and early diagnosis tools based on DNA sequencing are now on the spotlight. One of the main reasons for this constant search for new therapies is the high toxicity and how physically harmful some of the current treatments are. Unfortunately, the most common cases are the side effects of the chemotherapy, including hair loss, loss of appetite and loss of body mass, dry skin, anaemia, nausea, etc. All these side effects come because small-molecule chemotherapy is no other than a cancer-specific toxic chemical agent, which usually is administered parenterally. Because of this, the chemotherapy agent can affect other healthy cells, hence causing the multiple side effects previously mentioned.

One of the approaches to solve this is the use of nanomedicines, which can deliver the chemotherapeutic agents onto the cancer cells, therefore reducing systemic toxicity. In this field, several technologies have been developed, being the micelles and liposomes the most popular nowadays. These nanoparticles, however, have been presenting several problems, mainly due to the lack of control and selectivity when releasing the chemotherapeutic agent. To solve this, a new variety of nanomedicines is being created, called Theranostics. Theranostic is the combination of the words “therapeutic” and “diagnostic”, which comprises the nanomedicines that can offer a therapeutic effect, and through an imaging technique it allows the possibility to follow the response to the therapy in-vivo. Several studies in this field are being carried out by big and small companies, as this new technology seems promising due to the fact that it allows the physician to follow the treatment in vivo, therefore making possible to know if the treatment is being specific and/or efficient, which would facilitate the dosing, reduce the toxicity, and increase the positive results.

After a brief patent analysis, it is confirmed how innovative the theranostic field is. As it can be seen in the following figure, theranostics started to become a trend in patent filings in 2012, and now it is growing at a very fast pace, but still being under 1000 patents worldwide.

Another indicator of how experimental this technology is, is the fact that seven out of the top ten applicants for this technology are research organizations.

At Viromii we are really excited to work with cutting edge medical technologies and we are confident that companies will keep investing to bring these innovations to the patients. We hope you enjoyed the read, see you around!

Glucose monitoring – a vibrant area with a promising future

Recently, at Viromii we have been working with a new type of sensor for glucose monitoring. Specifically, we are performing a technology-transfer project with the aim of transferring the new sensor to a glucose monitoring company who can implement it in their products and provide a higher value to diabetes patients. Here, we want to share some interesting facts we have encountered.

Glucose monitoring is a really interesting sector, and while performing the project we have seen that glucose monitoring is a vibrant area; many companies are working on this field and many new technologies are being developed. The fact that this is such a crowded area makes sense, as the market for glucose monitoring devices will reach 17.8 USD billion by 2026, growing at a 7.1% CAGR. That is why we can see rapid growth in patent activity in the field, with big and widely-known corporations being in the top places on patent applications.

Fig 1. Patent applicants in the field of «glucose monitoring».

Glucose monitoring devices are used by diabetes patients, especially by the ones who suffer from diabetes mellitus type 1, but also by patients with a highly developed diabetes mellitus type 2 to continuously control their glucose level and decide on the food intake and insulin dosage.

Diabetes is on the rise, having doubled in 30 years with a continue growing expected. While in 1980 prevalence was 4.7%, in 2017 was 8.5%, with approximately 460 million diagnosed with the disease. Besides genetics, family history and age, parameters that cannot be changed, the likelihood on becoming diabetic increases with behaviors like unhealthy diet and sedentary life. Sadly, these are widespread behaviors and more and more people will suffer from diabetes in the upcoming years.

Fig 2. Number of patent applications/year in the field of «glucose monitoring».

Companies know these trends, and diabetes is a growing market where there are many opportunities and competition. This competition is pushing companies to innovate in order to differentiate from the rest, and the way companies are trying to innovate in the glucose monitoring space is rather interesting, being noninvasive glucose monitoring the hottest area. One of the most famous companies in the field, and with one of the biggest patent portfolio, is Verily (Google), who partnered with Alcon (Novartis) for developing glucose monitoring contact lenses. There was excitement around this, but in 2018 Verily paused the project, stating:

“Our clinical work on the glucose-sensing lens demonstrated that there was insufficient consistency in our measurements of the correlation between tear glucose and blood glucose concentrations to support the requirements of a medical device”

Verily is one of the most famous companies in the noninvasive glucose monitoring field, but, there are companies approaching this subject differently, some of them showing positive results:

Noviosense: is developing a tear glucose sensor with promising results. The company has performed a phase 2 clinical trial with positive results and a second clinical trial with 24 patients is being carried out.
Occuity: is developing a non-contacting glucose monitoring device based on optical techniques. The company presents the technology as a “mobile phone sized meter that the user simply looks into, presses a button and a reading is taken from the eye”. The company has performed clinical studies with 30 volunteers, reporting positive results.

These companies are trying different approaches and even though bringing these types of innovations to the market requires big investments, the reward for the company that provides an accurate and reliable solution for non-invasive glucose monitoring could be huge.

From Viromii we will keep an eye opened and will keep track of news and potential newcomers in the field; now it is just a matter of time that a company will come up with a ground breaking technology that will improve substantially the life of patients with diabetes.

References:

Guidelines for creating a TTO: what to bear in mind before taking the step

In the previous post, we explained the impact of the teacher’s exemption over university’s technology transfer performance. However, in this one, we will explore a bit deeper which are the guidelines to create a successful TTO, according to PROGRESS-TT and one of the most successful technology transfer offices in Europe, the one belonging to the KU Leuven. For this, we will discuss the 8 guidelines exposed from these institutions, adding at the end our point of view and some implementation add-ons.

In the PROGRESS-TT publication, they start talking about the importance of engagement from the university with technology transfer as a core institutional role, stating the importance of building consensus and engagement with the academics of the institution. The second point of this guideline mentions the importance of providing the TTO with enough autonomy to operate in an agile way. Funding is the next part, where they state the importance of providing the TTO with enough funding to hire no less than 3 professionals to work full time there. Of course, they link this previous point with experience, as it is core for the TTO to hire experienced professionals with knowledge in both industry and academia. After this, they highlight the importance of designing incentive strategies to reward the bilateral engagement between industry and university researchers. Other crucial point for them is to learn how industry works to develop long-lasting collaborations with them, pointing out the importance of being patient with this process before starting to build-up spin-offs. The seventh point of this guideline is to provide good service to academy researchers, as the TTO must be a referent for them where they can find the help in the things they do not have expertise, helping them even when the requests are not 100% related with technology transfer, as this will create goodwill and trust. Last but not least, they stress the fact of being active and innovative in your job to “avoid the role of rubber-stamping projects or the role of a policing entity.”

We can all agree that these measures are a must when creating a TTO. In addition, we think that this all has to do with four main factors:

Effective communication: first of all, a TTO must be seen as a storefront showing how innovative is the university, so it must have a very strong marketing and communication side. For this, the TTO must have well mapped all their most brilliant researchers, as well as fairs, conferences, and events in their fields of expertise. This way, they can be strong and active in the fields where they are stronger, and therefore known by the industry. Effective communication is also core when transmitting the importance of technology transfer to the very researchers of the university, as the TTO must be seen as a solution-focused office, rather than a bureaucratic burden. For this, both agility and autonomy are key.

Freedom to operate: this is fully linked with agility and autonomy. The TTO should be in constant contact with industry, and therefore must behave as such, as it must be able to take their own decisions in a fast and pragmatic way. In this point, two crucial points of the guideline must be considered: funding, as a core part of agility comes when the TTO can take their own financial decisions, and expertise to wisely allocate the resources.

Full organizational engagement: a TTO must be a core department of the university or research facility and must be treated as such. There must not be political biases or barriers to jeopardise its performance. In the end, it must be understood as an extremely specialized sales department and it must be perceived as that from the industry. Organizational engagement is crucial when designing incentive plans for the researchers, as technology transfer must become one of their key performance parameters.
Proactivity: for us, this is one of the most important factors. A TTO must be in constant contact with the industry and the researchers, organizing talks and courses, open days, generating valuable materials and useful templates to speed up the work for the researchers and be able to bring the innovations in a crisp and clear way to the industry. This proactivity also involves looking for external private and public funding, hiring interim business developers and spin-off/out boosters and starters for their companies, and being proactive looking for potential industry licensees or collaborators.

Nevertheless, this is an ideal, from Viromii we have seen the difficulties TTOs usually have to deal with, being mainly underfunding and lack of specialized staff. Also, a common point between successful TTOs is the number of commercial agents and business development staff they have. We know that this creates a difficult loop to close, as if the TTO’s performance is poor it will not receive enough funding to hire talented and experienced staff, and will hardly improve their deals, but in some occasions the most wise decision would be to disassemble the TTO, take two steps back to see the reasons it was not working, and reassemble it to fill the gaps. That is perhaps not an easy choice, but you can always ask for help!

Sources:

http://www.astp-proton.eu/downloads/BPL/Case_Study12_CAF4__Leuven_Research_&_Development.pdf

Professor’s privilege: does it really impact technology transfer?

Universities are the cradle of knowledge, new technologies and innovation. These new technologies and innovations can be the base for successful high-technology companies, or they can be of interest for external partners who might be willing to acquire or license-in them. The way these intangible assets are controlled, and formally owned, is through intellectual property rights (IPRs), mainly patents, when talking about technical developments.

Until the 80s, the ownership structure of university-based innovations widely varied among the different countries. In some countries such as US, Germany or Sweden, the researchers were the owners of their developments, what is called the “Professor’s privilege”, whereas in other countries such as Spain or UK there was already a strong enforcement of institutional ownership. However, the 1980 U.S. Bayh-Dole Act, lead a change, and universities became the main owner of innovations developed at the by their researchers. This model was slowly implemented by most of the European countries where “Professor’s privilege” was still a reality, and at this moment only Italy and Sweden keep this privilege.

*Data from Catalina Martinz, WIPO 2018.

From the moment in which universities became the main owners of the university-based innovations they got the responsibility of transferring and exploiting them, and this was the moment in which most of the technology-transfer offices (TTOs) were born. One of the main arguments used to support the abolishment of “Professor’s privilege” is that universities are more successful than professor’s when commercializing innovations.

The previous affirmation has long been a source of controversy and despite there is a lot of research in the field it remains a hot topic with no clear answer. However, from Viromii we do not think that this is the right question. The rate of commercialization and transference of university-based innovations is not related to the fact that a country has the “Professor’s privilege” or not. Taking Sweden and The Netherlands as examples, both are ranked among the top countries in the world regarding innovation and technology transfer, in Sweden the “Professor’s privilege” principle is applied, but not in The Netherlands. Contrary, we have the case of Spain, where universities are the owners, and Italy, following the “Professor’s privilege” from 2001, both scoring quite low in innovation impact and technology transfer.

As it can be seen from the examples, IP ownership is not the main factor influencing the success and impact of innovation and technology transfer, there are other relevant social and political factors that can trigger, improve, and incentivize technology transfer and value creation from university-based innovations; the focus should be put on identifying these factors and creating an environment that fosters and facilitates technology transfer processes. One of the factors that Viromii has identified is the closeness and relations between industry and universities, universities that work towards increasing their industrial network are better at transferring their innovations. This is why, at Viromii, we are working with TTOs to increase their visibility and connecting them with industrial partners, in order to assure long-term relations that will create value and returns in terms of technology and knowledge transfer.