Bone-Rad Therapeutics, Inc.

The natural progression of most cancers is to spread to bone, especially to the spine. These metastatic tumors are notoriously common and can cause pain, spine fractures, and neurologic problems, seriously reducing quality of life. Treatment of these tumors is challenging because two issues must be addressed—the cancer must be treated with radiation therapy and strength must be restored to the bone. This is especially crucial in weight bearing regions of the skeleton like the spine and hip, where tumors can weaken the bone to such an extent that the bone fractures just under the body’s own weight.

Therefore, conventional treatment for tumors in the spine occurs in two parts—a minimally invasive surgical procedure (kyphoplasty or vertebroplasty) to restore strength to the bone, followed by radiation therapy. The surgical procedure has a low rate of complications, is very effective, and can be performed in an outpatient surgery center under local anesthesia, with the patient awake. Even multiple levels of the spine can be treated successfully.

Despite the success of this surgery, the radiation therapy following surgery currently has a number of important shortcomings. As the spine is irradiated to treat the tumors, the spinal cord and nerves are also exposed to radiation. The spinal cord and nerves can tolerate some radiation exposure, and special techniques can be used to minimize exposure to the spinal cord. Even so, the presence of the spinal cord often limits the radiation that can be safely delivered to treat the tumors. In addition, the current form of radiation therapy is inconvenient for the patient, typically requiring about 10 outpatient visits, which negatively impacts the patient’s quality of life.

Therefore, Bone-Rad Therapeutics, Inc. aims to provide an improved alternative to conventional treatment that will improve patient care and quality of life for the hundreds of thousands of patients per year who develop painful tumors in the spine.