Electricity treatment for brain cancer receives £630k Innovate UK backing

QV Bioelectronics has been awarded £630,000 from Innovate UK to bring its technology which uses electricity to treat brain cancer closer to clinical trials.

Brain Tumours are the number one killer cancer for children and adults below 40 and took away notable people such as Dame Tessa Jowell, US Senator John McCain, British football player Paul Mariner and actor Paul Ritter, and 4yo Grace Kelly. Recently, Tom Parker, singer of The Wanted, has been receiving treatment for an inoperable tumour.

While several research avenues are being explored, from new and retargeted drugs, vaccines, oncolytic viruses, and implants using ultrasounds to open the blood-brain barrier, most are still at the research stage.

A commercial solution offered by the US-based Novocure, currently worth close to $7 billion on NASDAQ, uses electric fields to disrupt tumour growth and kill cancer cells, but costs over $20,000 per month per patient and requires transcranial wires, bulky batteries and daily head shaving.

Dr. Richard Fu, a, former NIHR academic clinical fellow in neurosurgery and co-founder and clinical director of QV Bioelectronics, said: "In my practice as a neurosurgeon, the best standard of care combining surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy still has a desperately poor prognosis, with a 12-month life expectancy and ~3% survival chance after five years. This is what lead me to co-found QV Bioelectronics to improve patient outcomes.”

The start-up is preparing for animal trials this year.

Dr. Chris Bullock, PhD, CEO of QV Bioelectronics, said: “This significant funding from Innovate UK will support preclinical studies of QV Bioelectronics’ GRACE device, enabling us to take several big strides forwards towards human clinical trials. The highly competitive nature of the grants, with rigorous technical assessment, de-risks follow on venture capital investment.”