Tumor transplants in mice for better personalized medicine

Jesús Méndez ( Linkedin ) for Biocat

Personalized medicine, in general, pursues an ambitious but specific goal: to be able to give the right patient the right drug at the right time. For this complex research, it is becoming increasingly necessary to have reliable models, ways to test and assess drugs before they reach patients.

This is the motivation behind Xenopat, a spin-offof the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO) and the Bellvitge University Hospital (HUB). “Less than 10% of drugs that are effective against cancer in vitro reach patients,” says Alberto Villanueva, scientific director of the company. “Many are lost along the way because what works in a cell culture doesn’t always work in human beings. Or because sometimes they have side effects that make them impossible to use.” Xenopat provides a new technique to improve reliability. In general, laboratories around the world test drugs on animals by implanting human tumors on their backs, just under the skin. But this method distorts the behavior of the tumors to a certain extent, as it separates them from some characteristics of their native environment. What Xenopat does is implant human tumors into the same organ they are originally from: lung tumors into the mouse’s lungs, ovarian tumors into its ovaries, thus avoiding this issue for the most part. This is called orthotropic transplant and is the result of “years of experience, which have allowed us to optimize and standardize the complex surgical process,” explains Villanueva

The company’s offering can be broken into two different lines. On one hand, they can be used to test drugs in trials. “This line is mainly geared towards companies, but also researchers.” Xenopat currently has a portfolio of more than 200 different types of tumors, characterized genetically, to demonstrate the efficacy of any anti-tumor drug in each of its variants. “This line can provide highly useful information for conducting and planning clinical trials,” says Villanueva. In fact, this technique has already been used to develop lurbinectidin, a drug to treat ovarian cancer —for which very few new options have appeared in recent years— developed in Spain and now in phase III trials, the last step before it can be launched to market.

On the other hand, the offering is also geared specifically towards the hospital arena. Although cancer therapies have improved, a significant proportion of patients still relapse, which greatly complicates following treatments. Villanueva is skeptical about other similar initiatives that, using subcutaneous tumors, aim to indicate the first drug, as he believes “there isn't a sufficient margin of time.” In the case of a relapse, these initiatives, especially Xenopat, can be highly useful: a small part of the tumor removed in surgery can be implanted into a mouse, which will receive the same treatment as the patient. As the disease advances more quickly in the animal, “we can test different drugs at the same time, even those from clinical trials, to determine which would be most effective if the patient were to relapse.”

When asked why they created a spin-off, Villanueva confesses that his research group is small and needs a steady flow of funding. This is the only way to “continue with the project to have it generate wealth and be somewhat independent. This way, we generate a certain level of returns for the public institution because, unfortunately, right now I think that can only be done in the private sector.”

Xenopat employs a totally organic growth strategy. “From the very first day, we’ve had a service ready to be sold, which has allowed us to fund our own activities from start with money from clients.” In this sense, they consider themselves lucky, although this advantage comes from years of laying the groundwork. In the first stages, they aim to validate the business to later tackle a round of funding with proven sales credentials. Meanwhile, they continue to innovate and incorporate new tumor models. Although their clients are currently from Spain, Xenopat can provide preclinical services to any company in the world and its personalized oncology treatment service “to anyone who can get their tumor to us within 24-36 hours of surgery.”

The company, which participated in the BioEmprenedorXXI contest —an initiative of "la Caixa", Barcelona Activa and Biocat to foster business creation— also includes August Vidal and Anna Portela. Vidal is a pathologist at the Bellvitge Hosptial and has participated in the project from day one. For Villanueva, his role is key: “Everyone thinks of other clinical professionals, those closer to the patient, but pathologists are key in developing these strategies,” he says. Portela, for her part, was a post-doc researcher at IDIBELL until last year, while also studying a master in business. She is interested in managing science and in bringing it to the people, and believes that we must break down the hurdles that stop researchers from following a more business-oriented path. And, with this conviction, she says that she chose this path because she believes that “companies can take scientific breakthroughs to society, something that scientific papers on their own can't do.”