NicOx: an American subsidy worth 2 million dollars

The biotech company of Sophia benefits from a second subsidy from the National Cancer Institute in order to study the preventive effects of its nitro compounds on the cancer of the colon.

It is good news for NicOx, the start-up of Sophia listed on the New Market: the American National Cancer Institute announced it would give them a second subsidy in order to study the preventive effects of nitro compounds derived from the aspirin on the cancer of the colon, one of the fatal cancer in the West. This two million dollars subsidy will concern studies spread on five years. This announce, on Monday July 9th, allowed the security of NicOx to get 8.20% at 64 euros (the listing was done in November 1999 at 20 euros).5,000 times more efficientThe scientific team will evaluate the mechanism through which by-products of the aspirin releasing nitric oxide increase several thousand times the effect of the conventional aspirin over the proliferation of the cells in the cancer of the colon (from 2,500 up to 5,000 times), a press release explains. They will particularly study the effects of a group of NicOx compounds derived from the aspirin on the kinetic of cells, the cellular cycle, the eicosanoid and nitric oxide routes as well as their effect on the development of the cancer of the colon on animals.These compounds use new chemical supports among which the second NicOx generation of chemical supports with anti-oxidant properties to link the nitric oxide releasing group to the aspirin.New therapies against the cancerThis subsidy from the NIH, the second one through a year, confirms the progress of our research programme on the nitro-aspirin and the potential of our non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs releasing nitric oxide, protected by patents, for the prevention of the cancer and particularly the cancer of the colon. NicOx, which proceeded last May to a raise of capital of more than 55 million euros, is one of the small values of the French biotechnology sectors compared to Genset or Transgène. However, it is very active. During the presentation of the new venture capital company, Esquire Capital Holdings at Sophia Antipolis, the professor Max Fehlmann (Zambon) thus noted in its panorama of European biotech companies, that ten out of five drugs in France were currently developed by NiCox…