Building on joint research from University of Vienna and Medical University of Vienna, P4 is creating next-generation platinum chemotherapy with fewer side-effects than current approaches.
University of Vienna and Medical University of Vienna teamed up today to spin out Austria-based chemotherapy developer P4 Therapeutics, with the ambition of creating new platinum-based drugs.
P4 Therapeutics will advance pre-clinical research indicating the platinum compound albuplatin could serve as the basis for a chemotherapy that produces fewer side effects than the medications available to oncologists at present.
Despite advances in genetics and immunotherapy, chemotherapies remain an important front-line tool in combatting cancer, although their sheer toxicity means the patient often suffers negative consequences as cancer cells are destroyed.
P4 Therapeutics hopes albuplatin will prove to be a well-tolerated platinum alternative. The ingredient would bind to a blood protein called albumin as a means of transport to the target cancer, releasing its content upon contact with tumour cells.
The spinout’s’ founding research was championed by Christian Kowol from University of Vienna’s Institute of Inorganic Chemistry and Petra Heffeter from Medical University of Vienna’s Institute for Cancer Research.
Kowol and Heffeter worked together at a research cluster jointly sponsored by both institutions for translational cancer therapy development.
They were joined in establishing P4 Therapeutics by the cluster’s two co-founders – Bernhard Keppler, dean of University of Vienna’s chemistry faculty, and Walter Berger, a research lead at the Medical University’s Institute of Cancer Research.
