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ICREA research professor Samuel Sánchez, founding academic partner of Nanobots Therapeutics (Photo: IBEC).
 28.02.2023

IBEC and ICREA launch the spin-off Nanobots Therapeutics to develop cancer nanotherapies

The Institute of Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), based in the Barcelona Science Park, and the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA) have created the spin-off Nanobots Therapeutics, with the participation of private partners, and Dr. Samuel Sánchez as a founding academic partner. The company aims to develop and commercialize the platform Therapeutics-in-Motion, conceived in the Samuel Sanchez’s Lab at IBEC, a world pioneer in using nanorobots for medical applications. This technology, which has different applications, includes innovative, more effective, and safer strategies to treat cancer and would initially focus on non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC). 

The company was born with the mission of developing a technology based on nanorobots with unique penetration capabilities in tumours. The therapies based on this technology are more effective and safer. They also make it possible to respond to unmet medical needs.

The new technology is based on the development of nanocarriers capable to self-propelled. To do this, they are optimized with different enzymes that allow them to move in fluids with high content in specific substrates. This unique and innovative platform enables the penetration and accumulation of different types of drugs in cancer cells, even in the most adverse conditions, and has as its goal to improve the safety and efficacy of current cancer treatments, which often do not have such a targeted effect and end up affecting healthy cells as well.

This innovative platform, which had the support of the “la Caixa” Foundation for its development and validation, covers one of the greatest demands of the pharmaceutical company, which is to have strategies to cross the biological barriers of tumour tissue and increase the selectivity and effectiveness of oncological drugs.

Dr. Samuel Sánchez, the academic founder of the company, is an ICREA research professor at IBEC, where he leads the Smart Nano-Bio Devices group. Sánchez has received numerous awards for his pioneering work in the biomedical application of nanorobotics and has been awarded some of the most competitive projects at the national and the European level, including four ERC Grants and prestigious awards such as the Banco Sabadell research award, National Research Award for Talent Jove, Innovator of the Year by MIT TR35, or the Princess of Girona Award for research, among others.