"Australia is a great place to do business as we have a superb research community, great partners and very experienced clinical trial units"

Noxopharm Limited, an Australian biotech company, is making strides in the fight against cancer and inflammation with its innovative technology platforms, Chroma and Sofra.

- Ayesha Siddiqui

Currently, the company is focused on developing new treatments for pancreatic and brain cancers, as well as autoimmune conditions like cutaneous lupus erythematosus (CLE), it is leveraging in-house expertise and strategic partnerships to build a robust drug pipeline. In an interview, CEO & Managing Director Dr Gisela Mautner sheds light on Noxopharm’s platform, RNA research landscape, and how Australian biotech is drawing international interest. Edited excerpts:

Tell us about Noxopharm and its portfolio of innovative treatments.

We are an Australian biotech with two highly innovative and proprietary technology platforms – Sofra for inflammation, autoimmunity, and mRNA vaccine enhancement, plus Chroma for oncology. We have a strong team of experienced leaders with over 100 years of combined pharma experience, as well as very talented scientists who are progressing our research on both fronts. We also work closely with research institutions and academia and take a very collaborative approach to our business.

How have the Chroma and Sofra platforms shaped the company’s approach to cancer and inflammation therapies?

Our Sofra platform has been developed from our close relationship with the Hudson Institute of Medical Research, based on over 20 years of research there into inflammation and related diseases. We are now seeing some very promising assets emerge from the platform, which is based on short nucleic acid sequences known as oligonucleotides. These provide a novel treatment approach, acting on specific cells to modulate inflammation at its source, and can therefore be applied in many different areas such as vaccines and autoimmune diseases where inflammation plays a central role.