Press release from Business Wire India
Source: Mitra Biotech Private Limited
Friday, April 23, 2010 05:01 PM IST (11:31 AM GMT)
Editors: General: Consumer interest; Business: Advertising, PR & marketing, Business services, Healthcare, biotechnology & pharmaceutical; Healthcare
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MIT/Harvard spin-out Aims to Revolutionalize Cancer Treatment in India
Bangalore, Karnataka, India, Friday, April 23, 2010 -- (Business Wire India) -- Mitra and Mazumdar-Shaw Cancer of Narayana Hrudayalaya Health City initiate pioneering research into personalized cancer treatment.
Mitra Biotech Private Limited ("Mitra"), a translational biology research company founded by a team of scientists from MIT and Harvard Medical School, has entered into a collaboration with Mazumdar-Shaw Cancer Centre ("MSCC") at Narayana Hrudaylaya Multi-Specialty Hospital. Mitra is developing an analytical diagnostic platform that will enable personalized cancer treatment. MSCC is a 1400-bed caner hospital based in the Narayana Health City campus in Bangalore and is the world's largest cancer hospital with a particular focus on head and neck cancer, breast cancer and cervical cancer among others.
Mitra will apply its analytical characterization models and preclinical Human Tumor Platform (HTP) along with clinical inputs from MSCC to develop patient specific signatures for personalized treatment of cancer. Mitra will also further investigate to develop ways to prevent and cure cancer in collaboration with MSCC.
Dr. Paul Salins, Medical Director of MSCC at Narayana Hrudaylaya Multi-Specialty Hospital commented "Our collaboration is an important step towards achieving the mission of MSCC to provide the best of comprehensive management to every cancer sufferer and make India the hub for major developments in cancer care. This vital link brigs enormous capability for identifying markers and accelerating our ability to accurately predict the merit of treatment strategies. Indeed the Mitra and MSCC collaboration at Narayana Hrudayalaya Multi-Specialty Hospital is the door that will open the passage for finding better management and the hope of a cure".
Mitra has also raised an undisclosed venture capital funding led by Accel Partners, a global venture capital fund with over $6 billion under management and local presence in the U.S., U.K., India and China. "Mitra has ground breaking technology that has the potential to change the way cancer is treated worldwide. We are excited to partner with them to help bring this technology to market in India" said Mr. Mahendran Balachandran, Partner at Accel, India.
KITVEN Fund 2 recently launched with subscriptions from KSIIDC, KSFC, SIDBI and KBITS co-invested in Mitra with Accel Partners. "Mitra is our first investment in the field of Biotechnology and life sciences. If successful, Mitra's approach promises to be a major breakthrough for treatment of cancer patients in India in particular, and across the world in general" said Mr. Jayakumar, CEO of KITVEN.
"We are very excited to team with the Mazumdar-Shaw Cancer Hospital to address two of the most significant issues faced in cancer research and drug development: One is how to chose the right drug/ treatment option for the patient under treatment and second is how to chose the right patient for the new drug under development. Our vision is change the way cancer is viewed. Much the same way that diabetes can now be controlled with the titrated dose of insulin, we seek to personalize the cancer treatment so that it need not be feared anymore. We are pleased to receive equity financing from both global VCs like Accel, and Indian VCs like KITVEN" stated Dr. Mallikarjun Sundaram, Co-Founder and CEO of Mitra.
"Mitra's cutting edge technologies will enable us to select the right drug at the right doe for a selected group of patients with a very high probability of success. This is a rare example of translational research leading us towards care for dreaded disease like cancer" said Dr. Pradip K Majumder, Ph.D., Co-Founder and Cancer Researcher of Dana Faber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston.
Avantez corporate advisors were the sole advisor for the above transactions.
Mitra is a spin-off from MIT, and co-founders include industry and academic leaders including the CEO, Dr. Mallik Sundaram, Ph.D, MBA, an alumnus of Wharton Business School, MIT, University of Utah, and IT-BHU, Prof. Charles L. Cooney of MIT who also serves on the board of Biocon and Gnezyme, and Dr. Shiladitya Sengupta, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and Era of Hope Scholar award winner.
CONTACT DETAILS
Dr. Mallikarjun Sundaram, Ph.D, MBA, CEO, Mitra Biotech Private Limited, +91 (979) 1044872, mallik@mitrabiotech.com
KEYWORDS
CONSUMER, MARKETING, BUSINESS SERVICES, HEALTHCARE, HEALTHCARE
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