Emerging Australian emerging biopharmaceutical company EnGeneIC, founded and led by two Australian scientists, Drs Himanshu Brahmbhatt and Jennifer MacDiarmid, has announced publication of a patient case study in the peer-reviewed journal American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine detailing the results of treatment with the company's nanocell technology.
The patient was a 51 year old Australian with Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma, one of six people in a Phase 1 clinical trial who received eight weekly infusions of 5x109 EDV nanocells packaged with miR-16a.
"At the end of the eight-week study period, a near-complete response was evident on the patient’s PET and CT scans," the company said.
EnGeneIC is a privately held company, founded in 2001 with proprietary technology based on bacterial minicells. These very small, 400 nanometre particles (EnGeneIC Dream Vectors or EDVs), are capable of carrying a payload of anticancer drugs and other therapeutic molecules such as siRNA/microRNA and plasmids and are targeted to tumour cells using antibodies.
The company said it is currently planning to undertake clinical trials in several cancer indications in Australia and the US, with financial support from venture capital investors in the US, Singapore and Australia.