French firm HCS Pharma is working on a ground-breaking project to discover new ways to treat cancer by recreating tumor microenvironments in vitro. We spoke to HCS Pharma’s President and Scientific Director Nathalie Maubon to find out more about the science behind it.
Pharma IQ: What is HCS Pharma’s project to research cancer treatments about?
Nathalie Maubon: We know that currently all cancer therapies are aimed at killing cancerous cells. The issue is that when you kill the cells, a lot of cancers restart because they are not the cause, environmental factors are.
We have developed a technology called Biomimesys that allows us to recreate the tumor environment of the cells just as it would be in a human body. We have proofs of concept showing that if we succeed in changing this environment, we can stop the proliferation of cancerous cells.
We also have developed 3D cell culture models to test different compounds to find new drugs that will treat the cause of cancer and not just the cells.
Pharma IQ: How does Biomimesys recreate these environments?
NB: There are a lot of 3D cell culture systems in existence, but all are hydrogel-based or plastic-based systems without any structural elements. Tumors have structural elements around their cells that induce pressure and the cells respond by proliferating, which causes the cancer to progress.
We have patented the process to change the cell system from hydrogel into a solid scaffold, and this allows us to reproduce the solid tumor environments. With Biomimesys we can increase pressure on the cells and induce the proliferation of the cells, so that it works in the same way as a tumor in a human. We do this with in vitro models so that we can recreate a miniaturized version of the tumor.
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Pharma IQ: Can this be used to study any form of cancer?
NB: We think that it can work for all solid cancers. We know they start with inflammation, which activates cells that are called fibroblasts. The activated fibroblasts secrete structural events that increase the stiffness of the tumor.
We can reproduce this with our technology, and if we find a way to stop this cycle of modification and inflammation of the fibroblasts, we will stop the proliferation of the cancerous cells. So far we have proofs of concepts for breast cancer, colon cancer, and hepatocellular carcinoma.
Pharma IQ: How significant could this development be for cancer treatment and what are the next steps toward commercialization?
NB: A lot of academic research shows that to understand the metastasis and the full process of cancer, we need to target this environment. Nobody has found how to do this since this environment needs to be recreated.
We are starting the commercialization of our 3D cell culture consumables and our first 3D models to recreate tumor environments for breast cancer and hepatocellular carcinoma. This year we also started to screen our library of compounds to find new drugs.
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Pharma IQ: What are your goals for Biomimesys in the next three to five years?
NB: This year we will find new leads and we are aiming to develop proofs of concept around these in the next two years. We will create animal, preclinical and clinical models in the next three to five years.
We want to raise funds for this and sell our products as the first organ-specific microenvironments. We also want to partner with biotech and pharma companies to develop our own drugs that target the causes of cancer and not only the cancerous cells.
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