Owlstone Medical and Bicycle Therapeutics’ new research partnership to begin with focus on lung cancer diagnosis
Owlstone Medical and Bicycle Therapeutics’ new research agreement will explore the potential of combining technologies and methods to develop antigen-targeted diagnostic probes that use bicyclic peptides as their targeting system.
Owlstone Medical is the global leader in breath biopsy for applications in early disease detection and precision medicine.
Owlstone has incorporated the use of exogenous volatile organic compound (EVOC) probes to help detect the presence of disease. The probes use the activity of enzymes in the tumour environment to release a volatile reporter chemical which can be detected on breath if a tumour is present.
Bicycle Therapeutics is developing a new class of medicines to treat oncology and other important diseases based on its proprietary bicyclic peptide product platform.
Bicycles are a brand new class of chemically synthesised molecules designed to rapidly and selectively penetrate tumours while minimising exposure to healthy tissue. They are valid both as stand-alone therapeutic entities or chemically coupled to deliver a variety of payloads.
The newly-announced partnership will initially focus on lung cancer screening as the first proof of principle for the broader opportunity by promoting selective accumulation of the probe at the tumour for increased signal and enhanced specificity.
Billy Boyle, co-founder and CEO at Owlstone Medical, said: “We are committed at Owlstone to transforming diagnostics through the earlier detection of disease through breath, and are always seeking innovative approaches to further enhance the performance of our tests.
“Through our partnership with Bicycle, we will jointly explore the exciting possibilities of a combined antigen-targeted EVOC approach for a broad range of precision medicine applications, initially for the early detection of lung cancer to support Owlstone’s ongoing work in this area.”
Both companies are finalists in the Cambridge Independent Science and Technology Awards 2023, being held in Cambridge on May 18, for which tickets are now on sale.
