Whole body hyperthermia increases survival, improves response rates to treatment and raises quality of life of pancreatic cancer patients.
ElmediX has developed a safe and reliable technology platform that accurately administers the optimal thermal dose to boost conventional treatments.
The need for improved pancreatic cancer treatments remains high. Despite advances in chemo-, radio- and immunotherapy, the 5-year overall survival hasn’t improved much in the past decades and remains below 5%.
The mechanisms behind the tumors’ reduced sensitivity can be countered by heating the cells. This can be achieved by (whole-body) hyperthermia, a promising supportive measure to conventional therapies. Thanks to the generic mechanism of action, other cancers with a high unmet medical need such as glioblastoma or melanoma are additional targets on our roadmap.
ElmediX introduces long-term whole-body oncothermia.
By bringing the entire body to a temperature of 41.5°C for multiple hours, a cytotoxic effect is achieved, which is stronger in cancer cells. Exposure to heat also increases their sensitivity to chemo- or radiotherapy through a combination of physiological mechanisms.
For a safe and successful treatment, it is essential to accurately monitor and control the temperature throughout the body. ElmediX’ device can precisely regulate the patient’s body temperature combining state-of-the-art thermal sensing catheter data with a proprietary thermal model of the human body.
Building on successful preclinical results obtained through in vitro and in vivo experiments, demonstrating safety and efficacy, a first-in-human clinical trial will be initiated in Q2-Q3 2020.
John-Paul Bogers (CEO) is Professor in Histology and Cell Biology at the University of Antwerp. He is also the founder or board member of 6 Belgian and foreign (South-Africa) companies (all medical or technology driven).
John-Paul was principle investigator of three large clinical trials on molecular biomarkers, successfully applied for 20 national, industry-funded and international projects (of which 3 EU funded programs). He was promotor of 13 defended PhD students and published > 150 scientific papers.
Johan Van den Bossche (CTO) is a serial entrepreneur. He co-founded Krypton Electronic Engineering and managed the company until its sale in 2005 to Metris (today NIKON Metrology). Since then, he has been involved in several new ventures: LAB Motion Systems (Air bearings), Vesalius Medical Technologies (Bursitis treatment), Xenomatix (Lidar for autonomous driving), Faromatics (Robotics & AI for farm automation, Barcelona), Saint start-up (Start-up Data Analytics, Athens) and Maughn (AGI).
Johan graduated from KUL as Electrotechnical engineer.
Geert Everaert (CFO) started his career in a US Multinational Environment (Tenneco Automotive Europe where he grew up to the function of Director of Finance for OE Europe.
Geert successfully contributed to several new ventures. First as CFO at Krypton EE (today NIKON Metrology), then as co-founder of Allegro Investment Fund.
Geert holds a Master in Law and a Master in Economics.
Oleg Rudenko (CMO) studied Electrotechnical Engineering at the Technical University Delft and Medicine at the University of Antwerp.
Oleg worked in anesthesiology at University Hospital Antwerp.
Oleg was Clinical research physician at SGS until he started at ElmediX.
Dr. Michel Janicot holds a Ph.D. degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of Paris VII (France) and was Postdoctoral Fellow at The Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, MD. USA).
Michel has over 25 years experience in Oncology preclinical and early clinical pharmaceutical drug development in increasing leadership roles at Rhone-Poulenc Rorer (Sanofi) and Janssen (Johnson & Johnson).
Since 2012, Michel is the founder and Managing Director of JMi ONConsulting, a consulting firm specialized in providing services and guidance for R&D programs in the field of Oncology, Inflammation, Immunology, Fibrosis and Ophthalmology. He is also co-founder and Board member of aPODD, a non-profit foundation focusing on Pediatric Oncology Drug Development. Michel joined ElmediX as Chief Scientific Officer in January 2020.
Paul holds a PhD in science from the State University of Ghent, and an MBA from the University of Antwerp - associated with Boston University (USA);
He has a master in Molecular Biology and Finance;
He is an entrepreneur, business consultant, interim manager, coaching start-ups and scale ups and since 2013 Paul is head coach at IMEC, Belgium and a coach for Horizon2020, Ming Kong (CEO TGO), Novartis, Sanofi-Aventis, Lifewatch, and Vitapthone GmbH;
He worked for EASME instrument, COSME, WORTH, and REA, as COO of Phillips Speech Processing, with the focus on USA and as managing Director of ICL-Fujitsu;
Paul was nominated for the best turn-around manager ever at ICL-Fujitsu.
Rosanna Finotto is an experienced Management Assistant who has worked in large companies (Douwe Egberts, Grontmij, Puratos, Cheops Technology) over the last 30 years.
Rosanna joined ElmediX in January 2019 in an assisting role to Management Team.
The ElmediX team is supported by an advisory board of hyperthermia experts:
Prof. dr. Eric Van Cutsem
dr. ir. Alex Van den Bossche
dr. Peter Vueghs
dr. Cobi Van der Zee
Prof. dr. Jaak Janssens
At the ElmediX Offices…
Researchpark Haasrode
Esperantolaan 4
B-3001 Leuven
Belgium
+32 (0)15 26 29 81
Zeutestraat 2B
B-2800 Mechelen
Belgium
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