OncoLize

Title

Commercialising new treatments for solid tumour cancers

Engagement type

RCSI spin-out company 

Industry partner

Founded by Mike de Leeuw, Prof. Helena Kelly and Dr Leo de Leede, OncoLize BV offers the next step in injectable drug depots for better tumor treatment. Oncolize’s platform technology aims to improve outcomes for hard-to-treat cancers (such as pancreatic cancer) by localising drugs to the tumor, with better efficacy, fewer side-effects, and at much lower costs to the national healthcare systems. 

Challenges

Surgical resection offers the best survival outcomes for patients with non-metastatic pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic cancer often presents late and requires aggressive neo-adjuvant chemotherapy to shrink the tumour back into the range where surgical resection is possible. However, due to its low vascularisation, dense stroma and poor tumour immunogenicity, pancreatic cancer is poorly responsive to systemic chemotherapy, which limits the efficacy of neo-adjuvant treatments. 

RCSI value-added

RCSI researcher and OncoLize co-founder Prof. Helena Kelly developed the ChemoGel technology, a thermoresponsive hydrogel for direct intra-tumoural administration of chemotherapy for solid tumours that became the foundational IP for the spin-out which subsequently closed a $1.7m seed funding round in 2023.  

“I was delighted to work with the RCSI ORI Innovation Team on the creation of OncoLize. I found their approach to the licensing and spin-out negotiations to be professional, pragmatic, and commercially informed, which enabled a mutually beneficial outcome for both the university and the founders.” 

–Mike de Leeuw, CEO, Oncolize.