Xylyx Bio Awarded $2.26M NIH SBIR Grant from National Cancer Institute

News provided by

Jun 14, 2024, 08:15 ET

Award supports development of a pre-clinical cell-based assay platform to help scientists discover and test drug candidates for metastatic breast cancer

BROOKLYN, N.Y., June 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Xylyx Bio, Inc., a regenerative medicine company developing groundbreaking solutions for tissue and organ modeling and repair, announced today that it has been awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Fast-Track grant from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to advance commercial development of its InMatrico^® disease modeling and drug testing platform to help scientists discover and test drug candidates for metastatic breast cancer.

Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in women, and metastatic breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in women. Animal models are poor predictors of metastasis in humans, and predictive in-vitro models of metastatic breast cancer that has spread to distant sites such as bone, liver, and lung are not commercially available, leaving a significant need for an in-vitro platform that enables high-fidelity cell-based assays in organotropic breast cancer metastases.

Xylyx Bio's InMatrico^® metastatic breast cancer cell-based assay platform aims to address the lack of in-vitro models of organotropic breast cancer metastases in the market and accelerate development of improved treatment options for millions of patients with metastatic disease.

The award will provide $2,265,419 to support development of a cell-based assay platform that models organotropic metastases using patient-derived breast cancer organoids and tissue-specific bone, liver, and lung extracellular matrices (ECMs).

John O'Neill, Chief Scientific Officer at Xylyx Bio and Principal Investigator of the project, stated: "This award represents important validation of our ongoing efforts to champion the paradigm shift in pharmaceutical research toward more predictive assays performed 'in matrico' – in the physiologically-relevant, tissue-specific ECM environment. Improving physiological modeling of metastases offers opportunities to better understand drug resistance and accelerate development of effective drugs."

This grant is supported by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number 1R44CA287881. The content of this press release is solely the responsibility of the author and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

About Xylyx Bio: Xylyx Bio is a regenerative medicine company developing groundbreaking solutions for tissue and organ modeling, repair, and rehabilitation. The company's InMatrico^® Kits and Assays are available for physiologically-relevant disease modeling and drug testing.

Contact
Andrea Nye
Xylyx Bio, Inc.
[email protected]

SOURCE Xylyx Bio, Inc.