Science in the Triangle

Editor’s note: North Carolina’s Research Triangle is home to hundreds of young companies. Scientists and entrepreneurs started them to develop technologies and medicines for better detection and treatment of diseases. Some of the companies work on innovations that are the result of research done at one of the area’s universities. Others are outgrowths of established companies. CivaTech Oncology, a startup that’s been around since 2006, employs two full-time and three part-time and is about to launch its first product, is one of those young companies.

Much of the furniture in the about 2,500-square-feet that CivaTech occupies at Park Research Center, a 13-building complex in Research Triangle Park, is second-hand. As the company’s two full-time employees, Suzanne Troxler Babcock and Seth Hoedl have important-sounding titles - Babcock is executive chairwoman and Hoedl is chief science officer - but they rely on a team of part-time employees and consultants.

Suzanne Troxler Babcock

Like many startups, CivaTech operates on a tight budget. Since its inception, the company has raised about $2 million from private investors, most of them live in the RTP area.

But things are about to change, said Babcock.

“We think we’ll look quite different as an organization by the end of this year,” she said.

CivaTech is looking for a partner to start selling its first product, a next-generation alternative to radioactive seeds that have been used for about 20 years to help reduce tumors in the prostate, breast and cervix.

The Food and Drug Administration has already approved the product, called Civa-String, and Babcock said the first prostate cancer patient is expected to get a Civa-String implant this fall.

That would make the start-up a competitor in a growing market already occupied by some large, publicly traded companies.

Brachytherapy products, which is what the radioactive seeds are, generated $240 million in U.S. sales in 2008, according to a 2009 report by Bio-Tech Systems, a market research firm in the healthcare field. But by 2016, the market is projected to increase to about $2 billion in sales.

Radioactive seeds to treat prostate cancer accounted for about half of the 2008 sales, Bio-Tech Systems reported.

The biggest suppliers of the seeds are C.R. Bard, a New Jersey-based company that is publicly traded and reported $2.7 billion in sales last year; Oncura, a division of General Electric; and Theragenics, an Atlanta-based company with about $80 million in annual revenue.

The radioactive seeds are about the size of rice kernels - cylinders made of titanium and filled with radioactive material, iodine-125 or palladium-103. Worldwide, about 15,000 prostate cancer patients receive the seeds every year.

The radioactive seeds have side effects, frequent bathroom visits and sensitivity to many fruits and other foods. But the biggest problem with the seeds is that they can migrate, Hoedl said. About 120 seeds are implanted in a prostate for a therapeutic dose, he said. If one or two of them migrate, they can end up in the patient’s lung or kidney and do damage.

Civa-Strings shouldn’t migrate. They’re cheaper to make, because they require half the radioactive material to deliver the same therapeutic dose, Hoedl said. They dispense the radiation more uniformly and they’re made with palladium-103, an isotope that works more than three times faster than iodine-125.

A Civa-String, filled with palladium-103 and gold markers. The gold helps the doctor find the strip once it is implanted. Courtesy: CivaTech

The strings are flexible plastic tubes about the thickness of an angelhair spaghetti noodle that are loaded with palladium-103 and gold pellets. Depending on the dose prescribed for each patient, they come in lengths from less than an inch to about 2.5 inches. Radiation oncologists place the loaded strings with the same kind of 8-inch-long needle as the seeds.

Seth Hoedl

Instead of about 120 seeds, a prostate cancer patient would require only 20 to 25 of the strings, Hoedl said.

CivaTech worked with the N.C. State University’s nuclear engineering department to make sure the palladium-103 doesn’t leach out.

If the launch happens as planned, Babcock expected to hire four more full-time employees this year.

Meanwhile, development of the next product, a sheet with palladium-103 loaded strips, continues. The sheet is aimed at shrinking cancers in the lung, colon and esophagus. Last year, CivaTech received $200,000 from the National Institutes of Health to work on the sheet.