I am pleased to announce that Aura Biosciences a US/Spanish biotech company that is developing ground breaking nanotechnology for the targeted delivery of drugs has moved to the offices of Jazzya, my holding company. The company was founded by my former student Elisabet de los Pinos and has developed the Nanotsmart Technology. Aura joins mobile internet start up Tooio who just raised 1.5 million euros in spite of extremely adverse market conditions and is also at our offices.

Nanosmart uses the advantage of viruses that can cross the membrane and deliver the therapeutic load into the cells. Unlike other technologies which use full viruses with their genetic material which is a big bio-safety issue, the Nanosmart structure is a hollow nanoparticle that resembles the viral shell but does not carry any viral genome making it a safe and disrupting technology for the delivery of a wide array of drugs and novel molecules like siRNA and microRNA.

In the field of Oncology Nanosmart enables the selective delivery of classic chemotherapy drugs. Chemotherapy drugs have been selected for their activity against proliferating cells but they do not discriminate between normal cells and tumor cells undergoing rapid division; this drugs cause unspecific damage (hair and nail loss, nausea, vomit and ulcer) side effects which can be life threatening. Nanosmart allows the chemotherapy to target only tumor cells thus enhancing its efficacy and reducing the side effects due to its systemic exposure. Chemotherapy drugs represent a market of 9.6 billion USD in the seven major markets and it is expected that this products will lose patent protection within the next five years.

After founding Medicorp Sciences while at school in 1985 but having been out of the company for many years now it is great to be back in contact with the sector and be able to help Aura put together their business strategy.

This is a video showing how Nanosmart works:

• Biotechnology
• MicroRNA
• Small interfering RNA