PhotoCure - Efficient cancer gene therapy induced by the PCI technology
Oslo, Norway, 28 March 2006.
PhotoCure is, together with its subsidiary PCI Biotech, developing a proprietary technology for site-specific drug delivery and drug enhancement called Photochemical Internalisation (PCI). In a scientific article published in the leading gene therapy journal "Molecular Therapy" it is now demonstrated that PCI can be used for enhancing gene therapy of cancer. Thus, in an animal model the employment of the PCI technology improved an otherwise non-functional gene therapy to a level where more than 80 % of the animals were cured from their tumours.
Gene therapy is acknowledged as having a substantial therapeutic and economic potential, but the realization of this potential has hitherto been severely limited by the lack of efficient, specific and safe technologies for delivering the therapeutic genes to the relevant cells in the body.This article demonstrates that the PCI technology can contribute to solving this important issue.
Kjetil Hestdal, President and CEO of PhotoCure, says: "Achieving safe and efficient gene delivery in the body has been a major limiting factor in the development of gene therapy. This article demonstrates that with the PCI technology efficient cancer gene therapy can be achieved without the use of virus gene delivery agents, the side effects of which have severely hampered the progress of gene therapy as a clinical treatment."