Oisin Biotechnologies develops a programmable suicide gene therapy platform, initially used to clear senescent cells from old tissues and thereby produce rejuvenation. Since this approach can also be directed to kill cancerous cells, and with little alteration to the original details of senescent cell targeting, a spinoff company OncoSenX was formed to undertake that line of development. This class of therapy should be broadly applicable to many types of cancer, with little customization required: it currently targets a common mechanism that appears near universally across cancer types.

OncoSenX is a late stage pre-clinical cancer company. OncoSenX targets solid tumors based on transcriptional activity using a unique lipid nanoparticle and plasmid DNA. The next generation in cancer therapies will be more targeted with less side effects. At OncoSenX we believe the battle against cancer should be fought with genetic information. Our treatment delivers a simple program that induces apoptosis in cancerous cells. Our approach is a less invasive, more precise intervention for this complex and devastating disease.

Our system is comprised of two main components: An untargeted non-toxic lipid nanoparticle and a highly targeted DNA payload. DNA plasmids encode an inducible death protein under a promoter that is active in the target cell population. We are initially targeting cells that are transcriptionally active for p53. Cells are killed via apoptosis with caspase 9. We can use our DNA payload to effectively implement logic gates (IF / OR / AND). This allows us to precisely target cell populations based on their genetic activity without harming adjacent cells.

Our patented lipid nanoparticle (LNP) is the transfection agent that efficiently delivers our non-integrating DNA plasmid to cancer cells. These LNPs have been shown to be non-immunogenic, even with adjuvant, and are non-toxic at doses up to 10x expected human therapeutic dose in rodents and non-human primates.