AIRED: September 21, 2020
SPECIAL GUESTS: Matthew Gdovin, PhD & Tom Roberts
According the National Cancer Society, cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States and around the world. The only health condition that kills more people is heart disease. In 2019, a staggering 606,000 people died of cancer in the U.S.
When a cancer tumor grows in the body, it creates an acidic environment on the outside of its cells. This acidic environment causes blood vessels to grow and attach to the tumor in an attempt to remove the acid. In something of a biological trick, the tumor then commandeers the blood vessels and uses them as a source of nutrients to help it grow. The current standard of care to treat cancer is to cut (surgery), poison (chemotherapy), or ablate (radiation therapy). Unfortunately, these treatments can cause debilitating unwanted side-effects.
Vitanova Biomedical (VNB) is developing an alternative therapy, Light-Activated Acidosis (LAIA), which uses a focused beam of light to activate a targeted drug injected into the tumor. Once activated, this drug causes the cancer cell to become very acid on the inside triggering rapid apoptosis (cell death). Through in vitro (outside of the body, in a petri dish) testing, LAIA therapy has proven capable of killing up to 95 percent of cancer cells within two hours after light-activation across five different cancer cell types including two breast cancers (MCF-7) including the very aggressive triple-negative breast cancer (MDA-MB-231), two types of prostate cancers (LNCaP and 22RV1), and a pancreatic cancer (BxPC3).
Gdovin states VNB’s LAIA therapy holds great promise as an alternative to the current standard of care treatments as it spares near-by healthy tissue, and potentially causes no debilitating unwanted side effects.
Tom Roberts, the company’s CEO, reported in June 2020, VNB entered a global strategic partnership with LiteCure Medical Lasers. Within this agreement, VNB and LiteCure are working together to develop and commercialize light-activated targeted cancer therapies based upon VNB’s targeted platform drug technology, coupled with LiteCure’s advanced laser technology expertise. Additionally, VNB was recently awarded a competitive National Science Foundation SBIR Program Phase I grant to further develop LAIA therapy. Together, these partnerships should help to advance VNB’s LAIA therapy from laboratory bench to an FDA submission….and ultimately provide an effective alternative cancer treatment for multiple cancer types.
MATT GDOVIN, PH.D, CHIEF SCIENCE OFFICER, FOUNDER
Dr. Gdovin received his PhD in Physiology from Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH. His 21-year research career at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) focused on pH regulation where he discovered the ability to disrupt intracellular pH regulation in cancer to cause cancer cell death. He is the inventor of VNB’s technology and a leading expert in the field of light-activated intracellular acidosis to cause cancer cell death.
Dr. Gdovin has ongoing collaborations with oncology clinicians in the departments of Urology at Mt. Sinai Hospital and UT Health San Antonio. He has significant experience in grant management, as he was the Principal Investigator on 10 grants totaling over 3.2 million dollars and served as the Program Director for a 10-million-dollar National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant. He is the Principal Investigator on a recently awarded National Science Foundation Seed Award SBIR grant, which focuses on using their patented technology to kill prostate cancer in mice.
ABOUT TOM ROBERTS, PRESIDENT, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
Tom has 30 years of experience in significant leadership and executive management roles at large corporations, mid-caps, and start-up companies in the medical device and biotech sectors including leadership positions at Acelity and Hoffmann-La Roche. He has been responsible for billion-dollar global healthcare brands, and the successful development and commercialization of numerous healthcare products.
Prior to joining Vitanova, he served as President, Chief Executive Officer, and Board Director at Invictus Medical, a start-up healthcare technology company. Tom successfully raised approximately $10 million in financing and directed the full development of a novel healthcare technology from concept to FDA clearance and market entry. He received his B.S. in Biology from Denison University and his M.B.A. from Indiana Wesleyan University.
