The problem with the current line of cancer treatment is that it is akin to carpet bombing it does not differentiate between healthy cells and the cancerous one. As a result, chemotherapy sometimes has side effects that are more debilitating than cancer itself.

As many as 90 people die every hour due to cancer in India, research statistics suggest. Moreover, the estimated number of people living with the disease stands at around 2.25 million in the country, with the top five cancers in men and women alone accounting for 47.2% of all cancers.

What compounds the suffering of patients is also the high toxicity of the cancer drugs taken during treatment. Ironically, for Nusrat Sanghamitra, the journey into the world of entrepreneurship started on a deeply personal note. But it is one which motivated her enough to carry forward the journey in a way that could help those suffering from the damaging effects of the disease.

In 2001, Sanghamitra, founder of pharma startup CyCa OncoSolutions, was pursuing her PhD when her father was diagnosed with prostate cancer. This prompted her to find a better way that could make cancer drugs safer and better. In my perspective, we can make cancer more manageable, for instance, just like fever by making cancer drugs non-toxic, yet effective like Paracetamol, she says.

Sanghamitra deviated from her initial plan when she was solely finding a better drug for cancer by choosing chemistry as a subject in BSc. Later on, during her PhD research, she saw that the lead molecule as seen in the results was extremely toxic in vivo. I was disheartened by that and felt the need to understand the mechanism of action of the drugs. So I shifted my research area from chemistry to protein engineering to biophysics and cell biology to find a method for reducing the toxicity of the existing drugs, she recalls.

What doesnt kill you makes you weakerHer eureka moment eventually followed. It came by with the serendipitous discovery of a novel molecule that could help in reducing the side effects of the existing cancer drugs. This happened during my tenure at Kyoto University. Based on that discovery, I developed a hypothesis and came back to India. I got a Biotechnology Ignition Grant to prove my hypothesis, she says exuberantly.

Aligning chemotherapys effects to being as toxic as that of carpet bombing, she explains her rationale for holding this belief. It kills cancer cells as well as normal, healthy cells and the toxic side effects make 15 million cancer patients worldwide really sick during the process of healing. This causes reduced quality of life (often high mortality) leading to emotional and financial trauma of not just the patient, but for the whole family, she says, reflecting on the nature of the treatment.

The side effects, she explains, are due to the usage of massive doses of drugs because every human cell has a protective cell membrane that does not allow foreign molecules to enter into the cell. And crossing this barrier is vital for drugs to show efficacy. Though the startup initially began by reducing the dose of cancer chemotherapy, they found that crossing the living cell membrane is as crucial for improving the effects of other drugs. Hence, they expanded their product line.

The core technology of the startup is Universal Sliding Gateway (USG). As USB is for your computer, USG is for living cells to transfer biological information, Sanghamitra quips.

USG, in essence, is a high speed, high precision molecular nanomachine that can carry drugs directly into living cells like a delivery vehicle. It is like FedEx for molecules. USG delivers drugs right into the target cells. It can transform drugs from poison to remedy and give new life to the old drugs, she explains.

The technology claims to have no toxic side effects and adverse immune response so far (as observed in mice) and healthy human blood cells.

Skeptics galoreSanghamitra feels that on a journey like hers, skeptics have often raised eyebrows about the work that is being done. Many also questioned the premise on which the startup was founded, including scientists working in the field of cancer research. At times, I am indirectly told that this is not going to work. Once a scientist from a premier research institute of India and, ironically, also researching on the subject questioned me about why I think the side effects of cancer therapy are such a problem. I was taken aback by his callous response, she says.

Moreover, she found that success in her field is ascertained more by aspects such as a faculty position in a premier research institute as well as the number of publications in high impact journals. When I started off with a big grant, my contemporaries did not really understand what I was doing. Many assumed that I did not get a faculty position and so I took up grant to pay my bills, she recalls.

Besides the naysayers, there have been other blocks impeding her growth as an early stage startup too. Building a team and retaining skilled employees, finding access to high-end equipment and infrastructure needed by her project have been other challenges that still continue to play up.

The tough get goingAll this has hardly deterred Sanghamitra from pulling all the stops in making her dream come to fruition. Besides winning a lot of awards and accolades as a technology innovator and a Biotechnology Ignition Grant of $100,000 by Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), she has her plan chalked out to go forward.

In 2018, the startup also received a grant of $140,000 under Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited's (BPCL) Project Ankur scheme.

Their commercialisation strategy is to have strategic co-development partnership with oncology driven pharma companies as well as Contract Development and Manufacturing Organisations (CDMOs) for product development. This will lead to out-licensing of USG to the oncology driven pharma companies.

Sanghamitra says that being a pharma product in India mandates the approval of Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) and internationally, United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) to be launched in the market. Both CDSCO and USFDA need the five stages of Preclinical, Clinical Phase I, Clinical Phase II, Clinical Phase III and Phase IV to be successfully passed for approval. We aim to complete our preclinical trials by mid 2021, she avers.

In terms of expansion plans, the startup has moved from oncology to antibiotics and gene therapy in its product verticals. There has been movement geographically as well. We have an Irish company in Cork, Ireland. We will complete our preclinical trials with a seed round of $1 million. But we will move to the golden triangle area in London or in Boston to get access to the series A round in which we expect to raise $10 million. We envision going for a pre-revenue IPO, she says, exuding an air of confidence.

Sanghamitras vision to make it all a reality comes through in her words. Cancer is not a single disease because its therapy and related side effects cause quite a few diseases that reduce the quality of life of cancer patients. It is scary. Many patients discontinue the therapy during this time. So I cant emphasise enough the need to reduce the dose and side effects. We are on a mission to do that, she states emphatically.

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FedEx for cancer medicine, Cyca OncoSolutions wants to reduce the side effects of treatment - Economic Times