Oncology companies presented at DNB

The DNB Nordic Healthcare Conference 2024 took place on Tuesday this week. The annual event gathers industry, start-ups, investors and politicians for an engaging day on how to advance Norwegian healthcare industry. The event included panel conversations about the Norwegian health export reform, company presentations from some of the brightest stars in the industry and buzzing networking breaks.

Several members of Oslo Cancer Cluster were again featured this year, both in the market session and in the start-up pavilion.

Katja Vetvik, CEO and founder of Thelper, was one of the selected start-ups who met with investors on the day. Thelper is currently in the Oslo Cancer Cluster Incubator’s Accelerator programme.

"We have developed a first-in-class antibody drug conjugate (ADC). It is a very targeted therapy, bringing chemotherapy right into the cancer cells. In oncology, there has been great progression in targeted therapeutic modalities. However, there is still a huge unmet need for actionable target proteins which are present on the surface of cancer cells and not present in healthy tissues.

"We have identified one such new target protein, which is highly present in aggressive cancers but not in healthy cells. The protein has not been characterized or targeted previously in oncology. We developed an ADC against this target. We are thereby directing the chemotherapy exclusively to the aggressive and metastatic cancer cells. The treatment may be used against all kinds of hard-to-treat cancers, including breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, ovarian cancer, and brain tumors and will be hopefully safe too.

"We have designed and produced this drug and have also run some mouse trials. We placed human hard-to-treat breast tumours in mice and treated them with our drug. The initial pre-clinical studies have showed highly promising results, and we are now looking for capital to run more such trials, which will establish the efficacy of our drug in several tumor types. We are also in a process of developing a toxicity model."

Oncosyne, another start-up from the Oslo Cancer Cluster Incubator, was represented by Jarle Bruun and Peter Eide in the start-up pavilion.

“We have established a platform for growing and screening patient-derived cancer cells and the vision is to leverage the technology to significantly improve the precision of cancer therapy for individual patients. The platform can also be used to accelerate drug development, and we want to contribute with our setup and know-how to make more efficient drugs reach the clinic."

"The concept is simple. You take the patient’s cancer cells, grow them in culture and then you test the drugs directly on the cancer cells. The concept has been used for infectious diseases for >70 years [antibiotic sensitivity testing ]. The challenge has been getting cancer cells to grow reliably in culture, which was a breakthrough that happened 10 years ago. This is however only the first step. You also need to have robust, accurate and precise drug screening technology compatible with patient healthcare.

“At the moment, we are focusing on product verification and further research and development. The first indication is metastatic colorectal cancer with a clinical performance study anticipated to start early 2025 at Akershus University Hospital. We have also started a project on pancreatic cancer with Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Sweden and the University of Oslo to expand the technology platform.”

Node Pharma was also featured in the start-up pavilion as one of the promising companies in the Norwegian oncology field.

“Node is developing a radiopharmaceutical drug based on Radium-223 to treat primary and secondary liver cancer. There is a huge unmet medical need for effective therapies against primary liver cancer as there are really no good treatment options for the patient group we are focusing on.”

“We are currently in the later stages of pre-clinical development with the goal of initiating first-in-human studies next year, which will last until 2027. During that period, we will identify the recommended dose for an expansion cohort and the Phase II pivotal trial. For the Phase I study, we will get safety read-out in 2026 and efficacy read-out in 2027."

Markets session

Several members of Oslo Cancer Cluster were also represented during the markets session, including Photocure, Lytix Biopharma, Oncoinvent, Zelluna Immunotherapy and Augere Medical. The company presentations gave intriguing insights into the companies' latest developments and spurred further interests from many conference attendees.