Strategic partnership between Spanios and GlioGuard to accelerate drug treatments for Glioblastoma (GBM)

HOUSTON, April 1, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Spanios is pleased to announce strategic partnership with GlioGuard aimed at propelling discovery and validation of groundbreaking therapeutic options for Glioblastoma (GBM).

GBM is a malignant brain cancer amongst the most lethal types of cancer affecting 3.19 per 100'000 individuals of working age with a five-year survival rate of only 6.8 percent. Following resection and pharmacological therapy, tumor relapses make the average prognosis less than 12-18 months. There is an urgent need for the development of novel therapeutic strategies that not only demonstrate enhanced efficacy but also affordability for patients and their families.

This partnership leverages Spanios's innovative patient derived tumoroid platforms for human-on-human efficacy model therapeutic interrogations; and GlioGuard's re-envisioning of the drug discovery process by integrating preclinical data using more human relevant and disease specific NAM (New Approach Methodologies) models like tumoroids to guide preclinical development and patient selection. This marks a significant step towards addressing the pressing need for effective treatments in the realm of GBM.

Bhuvanesh Dave, PhD, Co-Founder and CEO of Spanios noted, "We are excited to collaborate with the uniquely insightful and developmentally effective team at GlioGuard to advance therapeutic research for GBM. By combining our expertise, resources, and innovative platforms, we continue to deliver on our mission of identifying, discovering, and delivering effective treatments to one of the most difficult to treat cancer indications"

About Spanios

Founded with the mission to fast-track the discovery, identification, and delivery of oncology drugs in rare and difficult to treat cancers, Spanios enables the recreation of human solid tumors and their microenvironment ex-vivo (outside the body), eliminating the need for historically less predictive animal models. To address the evolving needs of onco-therapeutic research, Spanios has built its unique patient-derived tumoroid (PDT) model platform COMPASS (Custom Organoid Modelling Platform for Accurate and Speedy Solutions). This comprehensive toolbox of models provides reliable prediction of clinical outcomes through precision preclinical research. The three levels of human-relevant and translational COMPASS models fast-track drug discovery through efficacy-first approach. To learn more about Spanios, one could visit www.spanioslab.com.

Vincent Torre, PhD, Founder of GlioGuard stated, "We are enthusiastic about this collaboration with Spanios as we are looking to utilize their COMPASS platform to get human-on-human data on the impact of GlioGuard formulation cocktail on tumor growth-shrinkage and infiltration. This collaboration is aimed at providing critical patient tumoroid genomic data to accelerate our path to Phase 2 clinical trials and help patients with new treatment options."

About GlioGuard

GlioGuard has been founded on sound biophysical investigations of properties of glioma stem cells (GSC) of commercially available cell lines and GSCs from patients. Using our precision diagnostics, we were able to detect GlioGuard responders from non-responders for a targeted and more effective therapeutic path. Our investigations and diagnostics have led to identification of FDA/EMA approved drugs that inhibit proliferation and infiltration of tumor cells in the healthy regions of the human brain. The GlioGuards cocktail of repurposed drug formulation, combined with short- and long-term treatment, has shown 40% effectiveness in GBM cases and is expected to open promising clinical options and proceed to Phase 2 clinical trials. To learn more about GlioGuard, one could visit www.glioguard.com.

For more information:
Bhuvanesh Dave, PhD; Co-Founder & CEO, [email protected] www.spanioslab.com

Prof. Vincent Torre, Co-Founder [email protected], www.glioguard.com

SOURCE Spanios