Taking an inventive route to drug development, Oncos Therapeutics Ltd. has its roots in a type of compassionate use program that was started in 2007 at the international comprehensive cancer center, Docrates, in Helsinki, Finland.
The Advanced Therapy Access Program for experimental treatments with the company's oncolytic viruses was made possible through European Union (EU) regulation EC/1394/2007, designed to improve safe access by patients across the EU to gene therapy, somatic cell therapy and tissue-engineered products that were not yet commercially available. (See BioWorld International, Sept. 6, 2006, and Nov. 1, 2006.)
Under the experimental program, 290 patients from 20 countries were treated with the company's oncolytic viruses. Based on early findings, Oncos was launched in 2008 to take the technology into conventional clinical trials and seek a commercial path forward.
Co-founders included inventor Akseli