Location
Cambridge, USA
CEO
Elisabet de los Pinos, PhD
Website
Aura is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing a new class of oncology therapies based on a novel tumor targeting technology for initial application in primary tumors such as ocular and bladder cancers with the potential to treat other cancers.
Aura’s initial therapeutic candidates have a dual selectivity mechanism with targeted binding of AU-011 to cancer cells, followed by activation using focused infrared laser light over the tumor. This causes acute cellular necrosis and a secondary pro-immunogenic antitumor response, while leaving surrounding tissue fundamentally intact.
Aura is developing a lead product candidate AU-011 (belzupacap sarotalocan) for the treatment of early stage primary choroidal melanoma and choroidal melanoma suspects (collectively referred to as early stage CM), a rare and life-threatening ocular cancer with an incidence of approximately 11,000 patients a year world-wide. Overall, choroidal melanoma is a highly metastatic disease associated with high morbidity and mortality with no drugs approved to date. Existing radioactive treatments are associated with numerous comorbidities, most notably the severe loss of vision and the potential for enucleation (removal of the eye). AU-011 has received both Orphan Drug and Fast Track designations by the FDA.
The company has made significant clinical progress in it's ongoing Phase 1b/2 study has shown that AU-011 is well-tolerated, with a statistically significant reduction in tumour growth rate and preservation of visual acuity at long term follow up, even in high risk patients.
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