A Newcastle company says it has made breakthroughs in the treatment of early-stage mouth cancers on the back of an Innovate UK funding programme.
Based in Newcastle city centre, LightOx uses technologies to develop light-activated treatment that can improve outcomes for patients and reduce the need for surgery. As well as a drug development arm, the company has a research tools business that sells products for research purposes.
With funding from Analysis for Innovators (A4I), a grant funding programme run by Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency, the company is developing new light-activated chemotherapy for the treatment of early-stage oral cancer. It is the first of its kind in the UK and is currently completing pre-clinical testing. The company’s new class of light-activated chemotherapy should be administered by dentists or trained clinicians, who will apply a gel to the affected area and activate the drug with light. LightOx directors say the ground-breaking treatment is quick, simple and involves fewer side effects than surgery.
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They say the non-invasive treatment also significantly improves the overall patient experience, and has the potential to revolutionise light-based therapeutic markets globally.
It lacked the research and development expertise to explore its potential further, and with help from A4I and its large network of partner organisations, the firm worked with Oxford-based Central Laser Facility (CLF), an institution of the Science and Technology Facilities Council, which gave the LightOx team access to its expertise and an unparalleled range of laser technology.
LightOx’s product is already on the market and is currently being tested in hospitals and universities. The company – which also received a £400,000 investment from the Northern Accelerator Seed Investment Fund in 2021 – secured a significant re-order from Merck to restock their supply.
Prof Carrie Ambler, chief scientific officer at LightOx, said: “Our new technologies fundamentally change the way in which light-based therapies are delivered to the patient. The A4I partnership has empowered us to transform our business and enabled us to look at problems and develop solutions in a new way.
“When one of our customers demonstrated our compounds were capable of something called two photon absorption, we had neither the equipment nor expertise to be able to study that exciting process. But with the help of CLF, we gained new insights into how to further develop these products, how to make them better, how to make them different and most importantly - how to make them more suited for different applications.
“This information yielded new product applications that we can share with our customers as well as opening new commercial avenues.”
Simon Yarwood, knowledge transfer manager at Industrial Technologies, A4I, said: “The main mission of A4I is to allow companies to ramp up their productivity and competitiveness by solving hard technical analysis problems. We introduce them to some unique partner organisations that have world class skills and cutting-edge facilities.
“The programme provided funded access to cutting-edge R&D and expertise to accelerate LightOx’s capacity to raise the bar on every aspect of the operations and product development. We are seeing many similar success stories along the same lines with innovators across the UK in fields of biomanufacturing and manufacturing across sectors.”
