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Physiomics plc Announces its Participation in the European TEMPO Project

28 Nov

Physiomics plc Announces its Participation in the European TEMPO Project

by 16by9
in Investor News / RNS
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Oxford, UK, 28 November 2006 Physiomics plc (AIM:PYC) is pleased to announce that it has been selected to participate in the TEMPO (Temporal Genomics for Tailored Chemotherapeutics) Project as one of four Industry partners working closely with four distinguished European academic research groups. The project will be coordinated by INSERM unit director Prof Francis Levi, at Paul Brousse hospital in Villejuif (France).

This three year programme will explore the effect of circadian rhythms (the body’s clock) on changes in cancer cell proliferation and the effectiveness of cancer drugs. This knowledge will be used to optimise treatment regimen of individual cancer patients. Physiomics will use its cell simulation technologies to study the effect of cancer drugs on the cell cycle/circadian clock system behaviour, at the cellular level and at the tissue level (by creating a virtual tumour). Then, using software to simulate pharmacokinetics, the profile of concentrations of drug in blood over time after dosing, Physiomics will help establish optimised dosing regimens and delivery schedules.

Physiomics will receive approximately £169,000 (€252,650) of matched funding over the three year period and if successful will have access to 3 to 5 new therapeutic schedules, optimised to patient profiles for 2 main drug classes against cancer. This knowledge will be used to enhance the Company’s own drug discovery programmes.

The TEMPO consortium involves four academic teams;

  • INSERM U776 – the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM-Villejuif, France)
  • INRIA – the Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (INRIA-Rocquencourt, France)
  • CNRS – the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (Nice & Roscoff, France)
  • Consorzio Interuniversitario Nazionale per la Bio-oncologia (Chieti, Italy)

and four SMEs;

  • Physiomics PLC (Oxford, United Kingdom)
  • Helios BioSciences (Créteil, France),
  • H.S. Hospital Services (Aprilia-Latina, Italy)
  • INSERM-Transfert (Paris, France) that will manage the project.

Cancer represents the second cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Differences in the molecular characteristics of tumour cells as well as differences in patient genetic origin, gender, age, lifestyle and circadian rhythms account for large variability in the progress and duration of cancer diseases and a patients’ individual response to treatment.

Dr Christophe Chassagnole, who will lead the project for Physiomics said “We believe that the combined cell cycle/circadian clock model in connection with clinical data would make our simulation engine a powerful tool to address and solve chronopharmacological and chronotherapeutical scheduling problems”

Dr Paul Harper, a Director of Physiomics plc noted that “Physiomic’s technology was selected over competing systems, providing independent endorsement of the anticipated ability of our platform to help provide solutions to important questions being posed by this important study.”

For further information:

Dr Paul Harper
07747 842446