Nemucore Medical Innovations, Inc: Key Partner In Center of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence Under An NCI Award To Northeastern University To Move Nanomedicine From "Bench To Bedside"

Online, November 2, 2010 (Newswire.com) - Nemucore Medical Innovations, Inc. (NMI), as a member of Northeastern University's Center of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence (CCNE) consortium, will work in partnership with other CCNE team members to develop controlled manufacturing processes for novel nanomedicines. This collaboration is expected to facilitate the transformation of bench science into FDA compliant nanomedicines acceptable for clinical trials.

Northeastern is establishing the Center for Translational Cancer Nanomedicine where a multidisciplinary team of scientists, industry and government partners will develop cancer treatments from discovery to delivery. NMI will share in the 5-year, $13.5 million grant that the National Cancer Institute awarded to Northeastern. NMI will conduct scale-up and industrial level production of the test batches of the most promising nanopharmaceuticals developed by individual research teams within the CCNE.

NMI President and CEO Dr. Tim Coleman states that the CCNE partnership will make an impact on patient care, "Nanomedicine manufacturing is at its nascent stage, and the focus of NMI's work on developing the quality systems to manufacture these products in compliance with FDA guidelines is extremely important to translate the technology from the laboratory to clinical investigation."

Vladimir Torchilin, PhD, distinguished professor and director of the Center for Pharmaceutical Biotechnology and Nanomedicine at Northeastern's Bouve College of Health Sciences, will lead the CCNE research team. Prof Torchilin said, "The idea is that a lot of people are doing excellent research in the field of nanomedicine, but in 95 percent of the cases this research ends with a good publication. The most difficult part is the next step-if you have good results, how do you turn those results into products?"

NMI will address a key aspect of this question by providing the FDA compliant quality system to manufacture nanomedicines developed within the Northeastern CCNE partnership. The CCNE consortium will focus on targeted drug nanocarriers to deliver therapeutic agents and modulators of drug resistance directly to tumors. Patients with multi drug resistant (MDR) cancer quickly exhaust therapeutic options and care goals change from treatment to palliation; drug nanocarriers hold the promise for changing this paradigm.