Novuxion

Metastasis is a prevailing reason for cancer-related deaths. A key problem limiting the overall survival of patients is a severe lack of suitable technologies that capture early signs of cancer progression to provide actionable output for monitoring and treatment adjustment. The overall survival increases dramatically (18-fold) when the cancer is diagnosed and treated at an early stage. Our mission is to redefine the management of the metastatic process by offering “PET scan in a droplet” with single-cell resolution. Novuxion offers a platform that is based on one of the main unique hallmarks of cancer, aberrant glucose metabolism, which allows for the detection of cancer and stromal cells from the blood of metastatic cancer patients. The metabolic activity exploited in our platform is a new, general biomarker for all types of cancers that can be used to detect a range of cells previously invisible during liquid biopsies. The method of detecting highly metabolically active cells in droplets is protected by one patent and one more is pending. The clinical validation has been performed for breast and prostate metastatic cancer patients. 

Novuxion offers a non-invasive, inexpensive method of testing patients on a weekly basis that can be combined with further downstream genetic characterization of isolated cells. We aim to provide in vitro diagnostic technology to enable (early) detection of metastatic cancer, patient monitoring, and therapy adjustment. Initially, these tests will be performed in-house as a service and later by point-of-care devices for decentralized testing.  The long-term goal is to combine the platform with downstream genetic characterization and enable AI-driven treatment guidance and new biomarker and target discovery.

The Novuxion team consists of Dr eng. Kinga Matuła (CEO and co-founder of QurieGen),  Prof. dr. Wilhelm Huck (co-founder of Sphere Fluidics, Cytofind Diagnostics, QurieGen, Spinoza prize and Groeifonds winner), Dr Aigars Piruska (co-founder of Cytofind Diagnostics), Dr Pepijn Beekman (CTO and co-founder of ECsens, Ph.D. obtained in the lab of the developer of the CellSearch, Prof. Leon Terstappen), Dr Niven Mehra, MD (urogenital oncologist, clinical trial coordinator). Novuxion is searching for a seed investment of € 2M to perform the first clinical verification and then Series A of € 7M to perform clinical validation and bring the product to the market.