Strategic cooperation Erasmus MC and Sensius
Erasmus MC and Sensius are pleased to announce a strategic partnership. The cooperation is based on the next generation thermotherapy technology, developed in Erasmus MC and commercialised by Sensius.
At a glance
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Hyperthermia, or thermotherapy, is the technique of heating a tumour locally, as an addition to regular cancer therapies. It has the potential to enhance the clinical outcome, thereby improving the balance between cancer control and side effects.
The strategic partnership consists of several aspects, including international clinical trial leadership, sponsorship for a PhD, establishment of Erasmus MC as a Center of Excellence, centered around Sensius’ flagship product the FocusCollar. As part of the partnership, parties intend to enter into a sales contract for this new device.
Discussions with clinics from Europe, UK and USA are progressing on participation in multicenter clinical trials
Erasmus MC has developed the next generation in thermotherapy in order to treat solid tumours in a patient-friendly, accurate, controllable and reproducible manner. Sensius will commercialise devices that are based on this technology. It uses image-guided planning software, that steer 20 antennas to heat the tumour without damaging surrounding tissue. This technique provokes a series of biological processes which increases blood flow and oxygen to the tumour, inhibits the tumour’s DNA damage from recovering, and activates the body’s immune system to help attack the tumour. Taken together, these induced biological processes enhance the effect of radiotherapy or chemotherapy,
Thermotherapy is a technology platform. The head and neck area is the first body part that can be treated with this technique; other body parts are to follow.
Paul van den Biggelaar, CEO Sensius: “Erasmus MC has done a tremendous job in developing this technology. We are excited about the level of commitment to Sensius and Erasmus MC’s plans to transform this development into clinical leadership. We are convinced that this technology has the potential to become one of the pillars in the treatment of solid tumours. We will do anything to make that happen.”
Remi Nout, head of the Radiotherapy department of the Erasmus MC: “This technique provides an important opportunity to improve the prognosis of patients suffering from Head and Neck Cancer, thereby impacting on Quality of Life. We fully trust in Sensius’ capability to build further on what was developed in Erasmus MC.”
About Erasmus MC
Erasmus MC is the largest and most scientifically leading University Medical Center in the Netherlands. Nearly 13,000 employees work continuously on improving and strengthening individual patient care and social health care within the core tasks of patient care, education and science. They develop high-quality knowledge, transfer it to future professionals and apply it in the care of patients. Over the next five years, Erasmus MC aims to become one of the best medical institutes in the world. Erasmus MC is part of the Dutch Federation of University Medical Centres (NFU): www.nfu.nl .
About Sensius
Sensius is co-founded by ThinkThrough and Lavoisier, a network to connect technical development in the clinical fields to entrepreneurs in order to enable new products. The founders of Sensius combine decades of business experience in (medical) technology with academic and clinical research. Sensius has the ambition to provide cancer clinics worldwide with reliable equipment, knowledge and services to enable treatment of (head and neck) cancer with thermal therapy or hyperthermia. Hyperthermia attacks cancer cells with heat between 40oC and 43oC to make radio- or chemotherapy more effective. Visit Sensius’ website at www.sensiusthermotherapy.com