4.4.23-Health-Stratagen-Bio

GREG EKCHIAN: Thank you for the opportunity to be here. My roots are here at MIT. I was a master's student, PhD student in Course 3 Materials Science, and then did my postdoc at the Koch Institute. So it's always nice to be back in the MIT community even though we've jumped across the river and we're based over at an incubator space at HBS.

So Stratagem is focused on MRI-guided precision cancer care. And what does that mean? So half of all tumors are oxygen depleted. This leads to a resistance to radiation, chemotherapy, and immunotherapy, and, unfortunately for patients, a higher relapse rate and a lower survival rate. The bottom line is low oxygen leads to poor outcomes. But unfortunately, there aren't ways to identify these tumors in advance and provide a personalized approach to these patients.

There's ways to overcome resistance. We can boost the radiation dose. There's chemotherapy specifically targeting low-oxygen tumors. And we can try to modify the tumor oxygen environment. But again, none of those are options that we can actually implement because we don't know in advance that tumors are low oxygen.

On the flip side, particularly well-oxygenated tumors can actually fare well with less aggressive treatments. A group that we're currently collaborating with at Memorial Sloan Kettering is using an alternative oxygen-sensing method to try to de-escalate dose in well-oxygenated tumors, and they're seeing really good results.

They're seeing over 50% reduction in radiation dose without compromising outcomes, which has led to an almost complete elimination of severe side effects. They're interested in our technology because it offers a number of benefits versus what they're using. So we're excited about that. But there's tremendous desire among clinicians to have an understanding about tumor oxygen so they can personalize care.

The alternative oxygen-sensing methods are insufficient. But a lot of the historical data that we're looking towards came from things like the Eppendorf electrode. The Eppendorf electrode was a needle-based probe that offered absolute measurements of oxygen, which was really good. But it was very bulky, invasive. It made serial monitoring very difficult, and it didn't have any spatial context.

Alternatively, PET-based methods-- which the group at Memorial Sloan Kettering is using-- are more workflow compatible, but they're giving you relative or indirect measurements. And that's not really as actionable. So we live in this world with a Venn diagram that doesn't overlap. And that's where Stratagen Bio comes in.

We're offering a way to get absolute and direct measurement of tissue oxygen using our seed-based sensor. They're made 100% of medical-grade silicon. They're measured using MRI-- so standard MRIs that are already in the workflow. They don't degrade or break down. And they're protected by one issued and four pending patents, partially from MIT and partially from Brigham and Women's Hospital.

So our seeds are just one part of what we're offering. We also have quantitative MRI image processing software and an oxygen data engine that we're building. So together, this is our OxyTrack platform. And we see a number of applications where this can be deployed both in the oncology space, neurology, and beyond.

So one example of how this technology can be deployed-- and just to give a use case on how seamless it can be. Right now, for prostate cancer, patients have markers and spacers inserted. Their MRI scans are done. Treatment planning is done. They receive radiation therapy. And they will bin into two outcomes-- those that get unnecessary toxicity and those that end up with poor outcomes.

When we layer on top our oxygen-guided therapy, we can piggyback on the insertion step to get our sensor in. The MRI scans are already being done. The OxyTrack measurement-- treatment planning can be incorporated into the existing treatment planning. And then rather than this excessive toxicity or poor outcome, we can now give the personalized approach.

I co-founded this company with my PhD advisor Michael Cima here at MIT. We have a great group of engineers and consultants that are working with us to bring this technology to patients. We also have a wonderful strategic advisory board and group of collaborators over at Dana-Farber, as well as others at Johns Hopkins and Memorial Sloan Kettering.

So as far as what we're looking for as part of the ILP community and STEX25, we're looking to always work with MRI manufacturers on technology integration and preclinical and clinical studies, the same with radiation oncology companies. Biotech, and pharma, we're looking for opportunities for preclinical collaborations and joint development with an eye towards doing clinical work in about a year and a half.

Looking down the road a little bit more, we are certainly focused on opportunities around distribution and partnering with medical device companies. Anybody who's interested in learning more about what we're doing, talking more about the opportunities for collaboration, we're next door after. And we'd really love the opportunity to chat. Thanks very much.