New Small and Medium Sized Enterprises Join TI Pharma by Signing Two New Projects

Leiden, The Netherlands (ots/PRNewswire) - Three new small
and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) - Syncom, Synvolux Therapeutics
and InteRNA Technologies - have joined public-private partnership TI
Pharma by participating in two new projects. These projects, focusing
on cancer and inflammatory diseases, have a total budget of nearly 6
million euros.

The new consortium, formed by Syncom, Synvolux Therapeutics, and
University Medical Center Groningen, focuses on designing a versatile
drug delivery system for inflammatory diseases and cancer. Another
new consortium is formed by InteRNA Technologies, Utrecht University
and VU University Medical Center, and focuses on the development of
anti-angiogenic microRNA-based therapeutic products for the treatment
of cancer.

Versatile drug delivery platform for inflammatory diseases and
cancer

New molecular entities (NMEs) in the drug development pipeline
comprise various classes of kinase inhibitors that cause unacceptable
toxicity in humans. Proper formulation might circumvent side effects
and improve their general therapeutic efficacy. However, currently,
no appropriate formulation technology is available for these kinase
inhibitors.

This project focuses on a systematic approach in which chemical
modification of NMEs is combined with drug formulation studies. This
will lead to a versatile drug delivery platform for future clinical
application of kinase inhibitors in the treatment of cancer and
chronic inflammatory diseases. "This approach is expected to make
targeted drug delivery finally meet its expectations, as it will
become available for a variety of drug classes that are under
development in the pharmaceutical industry," according to the
consortium members.

Development of novel anti-angiogenic miRNA based therapeutics

"Conventional cancer treatment such as surgery, radiation therapy
and chemotherapy are far from sufficient, therefore, new strategies
of cancer treatment are needed more than ever," says Roel Schaapveld,
Chief Executive Officer, InteRNA. There is a large body of evidence
indicating that tumor growth and metastasis formation are dependent
on the formation of new blood vessels. Furthermore, angiogenesis is
an early event in the development of tumors, being already switched
on in pre-cancerous events and long before visible or clinically
relevant tumor mass is present. Schaapveld: "These two features make
angiogenesis an ideal target for the development of novel anti-cancer
strategies."

The recent discovery that non-coding RNAs, called microRNAs
(miRNAs), play a critical role in gene regulation provides new
opportunities to discover RNAs that can control angiogenesis. The
major aim of this project is to establish a technology platform for
the development of (anti-cancer) therapeutics based on angiostatic
miRNAs. miRNA is utilized as a therapeutic modality and advanced
nanoparticle delivery systems accomplish intracellular delivery of
nucleic acid agents. These will be combined with the identification
of surface receptor targets on tumor blood vessels to allow for
therapeutic intervention. Eventually, this will result in the
development of anti-angiogenic miRNA-based therapeutic products for
the treatment of cancer.

ots Originaltext: TI Pharma
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Contact:
For information, please contact TI Pharma: Ingeborg van der Heijden,
+31-71-3322036