NuvOx Pharma Awarded NIH Grant to Develop Technology to Increase Sensitivity and Specificity of Breast Cancer Diagnosis

Tucson, AZ, November 03, 2016 --(PR.com)-- NuvOx Pharma, a Tucson based biotechnology company, has been awarded a grant from the National Cancer Institute for $298,820.00 entitled, “B7-H3-Targeted Contrast Agent for Ultrasonic Imaging of Breast Cancer.” Evan Unger, MD, co-founder of NuvOx, a co-principal investigator of the grant, said, "This project draws upon NuvOx’s expertise in nanotechnology to more specifically and effectively diagnose breast cancer." Juergen Willmann, Professor of Radiology and Clinical Division Chief, Body Imaging, Department of Radiology at Stanford University Medical Center, and co-principal investigator on the project said, “A continuing challenge in the diagnosis of breast cancer is the differentiation of normal breast tissue from tumor and further differentiation of benign tumor from malignant tumor which requires immediate clinical intervention. In patients with dense breast tissue the challenge is greatly magnified and not well served by current ultrasound methodology. We have developed a targeting vector which will be incorporated into a new microbubble platform developed by NuvOx and are optimistic that the new targeted microbubbles will advance the sensitivity, and especially important, the specificity of ultrasound diagnosis of breast cancer in order to determine whether clinical intervention is needed. The increased diagnostic accuracy is expected to decrease costs associated with breast cancer medicine due to earlier intervention for malignancies and also the avoidance of unnecessary clinical intervention due to inaccurate characterization of normal tissue or benign tumor as malignant tumor.”

NuvOx is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company currently in clinical testing of another nanotechnology product for brain cancer.

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