I
n the recent years, cancer
has become a major threat to
global health. Annually,
millions of new patients are
being affected by this disease,
causing them both physical and
emotional pain. Numerous
tumour types are being treated
with one or more therapies and
more than 70 new cancer
treatments have been launched in
Within the drug
discovery
domain, the
Oncocur India’s
focus is on
nanomedicine
derived from
phytochemicals
and the
company is first
among few
pre-eminent
nanomedicine
companies in
the world in
this space.
the past five years. However, the
mortality rates remain high
despite advancement in the
technology and limited
affordability is a serious problem.
Many of these drugs are not even
available to patients in most of
the countries, and even when
registered, they may not be
reimbursed under public
insurance programs.
“
Hence, affordability, drug
selectivity and side effects are the
major limitations affecting cancer
patients. When one thinks of an
answer to such complexities, only
a miracle pill seems to be a
solution. Well, the Pune based
startup, Oncocur India is looking
at creating one. The company
aims to create innovative
effectiveness of these drug targets.
After initial years of roller coaster
ride, the company managed to
secure angel funding from Mr
Atul Sanghavi and co-promoter
Mr Prem Pandey, who are
instrumental in establishing
Oncocur India (incorporated
2016). Subsequently, the
company managed to convert the
basic formulations into test drug
Cancer drug discovery is prohibitively
expensive and carried out mostly in developed
countries. Oncocur India's disruptive low cost (almost
1/10th) drug discovery business model attracted me
to invest in the company. Given the complementary
team and more importantly
founder's, Dr Vijay Kanuru’s
passion, exceptional technology
depth along with commericial
knowledge is a rare combination
to take the company to the new
heights.
Mr Atul Sanghavi, Angel investor and
Promoter
products from cocktail of
phytopharma and
nanotechnological approaches. In
fact, it feels that nanomedicine
has the potential to address huge
unmet needs of the cancer
patients in affordable way.
Modest beginnings yet high spirits
Oncocur India’s foundations were
laid by Dr Vijay Kanuru in 2013,
with the aim to develop selective
and safer nanoparticle based
medicine for cancer. The initial
corpus came from founder’s
savings, which was used for
developing proprietary nano
particle formulations. The focus
was then on the exploration,
identification, scalability, cost
candidates that was enabled by
another co-promoter cum team
members such as Dr Swapnil
Kamble and Dr Kishori Apte.
The company says its mission is
to bring safer nano medicine
based on phytochemicals for
cancer treatment. The objective
of the company is to develop
selective and safer nanomedicine
for multi drug resistant deadly
cancer and more importantly
targeting cancer with minimal
side effects, which is the major
limitation in current standard
of care.
Banking on strong drug
pipeline
The company has a strong
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