November 21, 2008: NanoMedical Systems (NMS), a startup cofounded by Mauro Ferrari, Ph.D., of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHSC-Houston) to improve the effectiveness of anti-cancer agents and other medications, has received a record $3.5 million Commercialization Award through the Texas Emerging Technology Fund (ETF). NMS was one of six companies that received the ETF awards, which were announced by Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Nov. 18.
The grant will help accelerate the completion of engineering and pre-clinical testing for a device, which will allow for a controlled dose of medicine to be released into the bloodstream over many weeks or months. The device will be a safer, more reliable and less costly alternative to a long series of injections or clinical visits.
“From the information I have, this is the largest commercialization award (to private companies in collaboration with a university for product development) awarded from the emerging technology fund to date. They’ve gone to $3 million twice and $2 million five times out of 48 commercialization awards,” said Wayne R. Roberts, associate VP for public policy at the UT Health Science Center at Houston.
The company’s basic technology was developed by Ferrari, who is deputy chairman of the Department of Biomedical Engineering, a joint venture among UTHSC-Houston, The University of Texas at Austin and The University of Texas’ M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.
Mauro Ferrari is co-founder of NanoMedical Systems and deputy chairman of the Department of Biomedical Engineering, a joint venture among UTHSC-Houston, The University of Texas at Austin and The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.
Each small silicon chip through which the NMS device will deliver medication into the bloodstream has 100,000 nanochannels, each precisely dimensioned from engineered materials to a size near that of a drug molecule. The company is focusing on an anti-cancer drug that is used in long-term therapy for its first commercially viable product. Its research and development activities over the next year will include further design and testing of the device’s chip and capsule, animal studies, and applications with the federal Food and Drug Administration.
“This is a dream situation,” Ferrari said. “We have an opportunity to take decisive strides against cancer, working all together as a team: the company, the State of Texas, our university laboratory and our collaborating partners at several Texas institutions. University laboratories alone cannot bring medical innovations into the clinic; they need companies that will turn basic discoveries into new medical treatments and clinical devices.”
The NMS device, called a “personalized molecular drug-delivery system, or PMDS, is a small capsule designed to be implanted just under the skin in a simple office procedure. As development continues, the capsule will be made even smaller because it will contain mostly the active pharmaceutical agent and almost none of the bulk solution in which an injectable drug is usually dissolved.