ABOUT VITANOVA BIOMEDICAL:

Vitanova Biomedical, Inc. (VNB) is a San Antonio, TX-based early stage biotechnology company developing patented (pending) technology licensed from the University of Texas at San Antonio. The company’s cancer treatment, Light-Activated Intracellular Acidosis (LAIA), is based upon three accepted principles of cancer therapy: 1) Intracellular acidosis causes rapid pH-induced cancer cell death; 2) Compounds can be activated by specific wavelengths of light; and 3) Nanoparticles can be selectively targeted to specific cancer types using antibody-antigen conjugates. Our data support that LAIA effectively induces early cell apoptosis, resulting in 81-100% cancer cell death in less than two hours, across five different cancer cell types including triple negative breast, pancreatic and prostate cancer cells. While future cancer indications can be pursued by simply changing the targeting conjugates of our proprietary compound, VNB is currently pursuing early stage local prostate cancer as our first cancer therapy indication.

UNMET MARKET NEED:

The prevalence of US men diagnosed with all stages of prostate cancer is approximately 3.3 million patients, with over 80% of all prostate cancer patients being diagnosed with local prostate cancer. As the standard of care (SOC), men with local prostate cancer have two therapy choices: 1) Surgery and/or radiation which are associated with high five-year survival, but potentially cause debilitating side effects including erectile dysfunction, bowel urgency, and urinary incontinence; or 2) Active surveillance which does not have the side effects of surgery and/or radiation, but involves repeat biopsies, causes anxiety due to living with untreated cancer, and the consequence of the cancer progressing to a more advanced clinical stage with a reduced five-year survival.

VITANOVA BIOMEDICAL SOLUTION:

VNB’s initial compound consists of an upconverting nanoparticle (UCNP) conjugated with prostate specific membrane antibody (PSMAb) designed to detect prostate specific membrane antigen (PSMA) expressed exclusively on the surface of prostate cancer cells. This PSMA-targeted UCNP (VNBp-1) is intratumorally injected and will only enter cancer cells expressing PSMA. By targeting VNBp-1 to only prostate cancer cells, VNB will effectively kill prostate cancer without damaging nearby healthy tissue or causing any unwanted side effects. VNBp-1 is activated by deep penetrating 980 nm near-infrared light to elicit rapid intracellular acidosis and associated apoptosis of the targeted prostate cancer cells.

INTERVIEW WITH MATTHEW GDOVIN, Ph.D., FOUNDER AND CHIEF SCIENCE OFFICER:

Click “play” to view a recent interview with Dr. Gdovin describing Vitanova Biomedical and light-activated intracellular acidosis technology