PhotoDOX -Light-activated Chemotherapy Oncology
PhotoDOX is a revolutionary cancer therapy designed to address solid tumors which are resistant to current standards of care through the innovative benefits of the light-activated PoP-liposome drug delivery system.
PhotoDOX combines POP BIO’s proprietary photosensitive porphyrin-phospholipid (PoP) nanoparticles with the widely prescribed cancer drug doxorubicin to provide localized drug release with enhanced therapeutic benefit when activated by light. PhotoDOX provides precise targeting of Dox to tumor sites in combination with a chemotherapy with the precision of light-based treatments.
PhotoDOX’s optimized formulation combines long circulation and robust serum stability with the photodynamic enhancement of vascular permeability and light triggered doxorubicin release, allowing PhotoDOX to achieve its primary goal: targeted treatment at the tumor site with minimal systemic toxicity.
Conventional light-based cancer treatment approaches, such as photodynamic therapy (PDT), have been functionally limited by the limited tumor uptake of the photosensitizing agent, as well as by the duration and intensity of light required for treatment.
Despite improvements in light delivery technology (such as interstitial probes and improved treatment planning) clinical development of PDT has been limited to topical therapies. In part, due to the fact that the PDT effect is only present during light irradiation and effective against cells by the generation of reactive oxygen species.
By integrating a nanoparticle platform that breaks through the limitations of conventional approaches such as Doxil®, with a photodynamic mechanism that transcends the functional bounds of PDT, PhotoDOX provides both localized ablation and uniquely enhanced and uniform deposition of payload drug throughout tumor tissue to provide hope to patients suffering from difficult to treat solid tumors, such as cancers of the liver, pancreas, and breast.
PhotoDOX is a unique approach that allows for targeted ablative treatment of multiple tumor sites, maximizing the effective ability of traditional chemotherapy agents to treat tumor tissues with minimal systemic toxicity.
Therapy begins with intravenous drug administration. Red laser light (665nm) is then applied to the target tumors using a fiber-optic probe. This light activates PhotoDOX, triggering a photodynamic effect that damages the tumor and enhances the tumor drug uptake while simultaneously bursting the nanoparticle shells, driving the release of doxorubicin directly into the tumor, resulting in effective tumor ablation.
