Startup Spotlight: Apeikon Therapeutics

Company: Apeikon Therapeutics

Location: London, UK

Founding year: 2020

CEO/Founders: Dr Maya Thanou (CSO/Acting CEO) and Dr Moh Tadayyon (Preclinical Development and Project Management)

Tech summary:
Apeikon Therapeutics has developed a revolutionary new technology for cancer treatment.  As a spin-out company, Apeikon was born out of the significant discoveries made over the last 14 years at King’s College London by Dr Maya Thanou. Apeikon Therapeutics is working on a novel technology that will substantially improve the efficacy and reduce the side effects of cancer drugs through directed activation of drug delivery. The unpleasant side effects from chemotherapies are a result of their unspecific distribution in the body, causing damaging exposure to non-cancerous tissues. Apeikon’s technology will allow high doses of drugs to be delivered directly to a tumour via encapsulation within magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) labelled liposomes. The MRI labels are tracked through MRI scans so that, at the site of the tumour, non-invasive intervention (such as focused ultrasound or microwaves) can be used to activate the drug, causing the liposomes to release their therapeutic cargo only at the desired location.  

History:
Co-founders Dr Maya Thanou and Dr Moh Tadayyon have combined their academic research and pharma R&D experience to work on a platform technology for local delivery of high-concentration drugs. Maya is a serial academic innovator with 10 patents to date, and Apeikon Therapeutics is a spin-out of her academic research from King’s College London. Moh brings 20 years of experience in pre-clinical development and clinical translation from his career in the pharmaceutical industry. The two founders originally met in 2017 at a Knowledge Transfer Partnership meeting and co-founded Apeikon Therapeutics in December 2020.

Vision and progress:
To date, Apeikon Therapeutics have successfully validated their technology at the pre-clinical stage using mouse cancer models. The next steps involve clinical trials to ensure that the treatment is safe, efficacious and to optimise the drug dose for the maximum therapeutic window. The company has received support from Innovate UK, having been awarded the SETSquare/ICURe, Innovate UK Edge and Biomedical Catalyst awards.  Apeikon’s team has grown over the last few years, with Dr Maral Amrahli joining as Operations Manager. Maral has been working with Maya since 2013 and she continues to lead the Apeikon Innovate UK ICURe award.

Recently, Apeikon Therapeutics has had the honour of including Dr Nicolas Huber as part of their team as a business advisor. Nicolas has more than 10 years of experience in medical device and biotechnology spin-outs. Vision wise, Apeikon’s technology is designed to provide treatment solutions for solid tumours such as cancers of the liver, brain, and pancreas.

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