Bexion Pharmaceuticals announced that it has been awarded a $1.5M Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The grant entitled “SapC-DOPS Nanovesicles for Treating Glioblastoma Multiforme” was awarded September 28, 2010 and covers a two year period. This announcement from NCI follows their September 20, 2010 announcement selecting Bexion for a notable research collaboration with NCI’s Nanotechnology Characterization Laboratory (NCL), part of a major program, the Alliance for Nanotechnology in Cancer, to advance the medical applications of nanotechnology. Bexion’s proprietary technology is based on Saposin C- dioleoylphosphatidylserine (dubbed “SapC-DOPS”) and is a first-in-class nanovesicle therapeutic for the treatment of glioblastomas (GBM), pancreatic cancers, and other solid tumors. These nanovesicles have preferential affinity for phosphatidylserine-enriched membrane
patches which appear to be common in many types of tumor cells and tumor neovasculature. Bexion’s initial studies of SapC-DOPS nanovesicles have shown that they induce apoptosis in cancer cell lines and also demonstrated in vivo efficacy in multiple tumor models.
