Los Angeles-based Bionaut Labs uses microscale robots to deliver drugs for treating central nervous system (CNS) diseases and disorders. Through magnetic propulsion, the company’s Bionauts can navigate the human body and deliver drugs locally.
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The VC-backed microrobotics startup Bionaut Labs has entered into a strategic collaboration with Candel Therapeutics.
Candel (NSDQ:CADL) — a biopharma focused on oncolytic viral immunotherapies — will explore the use of Bionaut Labs’ miniature remote-controlled robots. Could the robots help deliver Candel’s oncolytic viral immunotherapy agents to certain brain tumors?
Founded in 2016, Bionaut Labs has focused on developing new modalities for treating central nervous system disorders since its inception.
Now, Bionaut will work with Candel to further the preclinical development of a micro-robotic system that can deliver oncolytic viruses directly to brain tumors, including high-grade gliomas.
“Bionaut designed its platform to provide accurate and safe access to hard-to-reach locations in the CNS,” said Michael Shpigelmacher, Bionaut Labs’ CEO.
Executives at Bionaut were impressed with Candel’s presence in …
Los Angeles–based startup Bionaut Labs emerged from stealth mode earlier this year to announce its intent to use drug-filled microrobots to treat certain cancers.
The company has now secured a humanitarian use device designation from FDA to use a microrobot known as BNL-201 to treat Dandy-Walker syndrome, a rare brain malformation.
In 1914, neurosurgeon Walter Dandy observed a toddler with a brain cyst that led to swelling in the back of the brain. In the 1940s, another neurosurgeon, Arthur Earl Walker, identified the same type of malformation, later dubbed Dandy-Walker syndrome. While the syndrome varies in severity, children with the condition may have developmental and movement disorders, vomiting or seizures.
Treatment options for the syndrome have been limited to shunt surgery, which has a significant rate of complications. A 2015 study found more than one-quarter of Dandy-Walker syndrome patients experienced complications, including infection, shun…
Los Angeles–based startup Bionaut Labs emerged from stealth mode earlier this year to announce its intent to use drug-filled microrobots to treat certain cancers.
The company has now secured a humanitarian use device designation from FDA to use a microrobot known as BNL-201 to treat Dandy-Walker syndrome, a rare brain malformation.
In 1914, neurosurgeon Walter Dandy observed a toddler with a brain cyst that led to swelling in the back of the brain. In the 1940s, another neurosurgeon, Arthur Earl Walker, identified the same type of malformation, later dubbed Dandy-Walker syndrome. While the syndrome varies in severity, children with the condition may have developmental and movement disorders, vomiting or seizures.
Treatment options for the syndrome have been limited to shunt surgery, which has a significant rate of complications. A 2015 study found more than one-quarter of Dandy-Walker syndrome patients experienced complications, including infection, shun…
A Bionaut prototype. The final device may undergo alteration based on FDA feedback.
The microrobotics startup Bionaut Labs has announced that FDA has granted a humanitarian use device designation for the device known as BNL-201 to treat a Dandy-Walker syndrome, a congenital brain malformation affecting the cerebellum.
According to the National Organization for Rare Disorders, the syndrome affects one out of every 25,000 to 35,000 live births.
There are currently few treatment options for the condition. A surgically-placed cerebral shunt can relieve excess fluid in the brain to relieve intracranial pressure. As Los Angeles–based Bionaut notes, invasive procedures have a risk of infections and complications.
The company says BNL-201 offers a minimally invasive option to fenestrate (puncture) the cyst that forms at the back of the brain in Dandy-Walker syndrome.
In June, FDA granted orphan…
The roboticist Michael Shpigelmacher was one of the founders of PrimeSense, a robotic 3-D vision technology company Apple acquired in 2013.
PrimeSense created technology empowering the Microsoft Xbox Kinect and the iPhone’s Face ID feature, allowing users to use facial recognition to unlock their phones.
Now Shpigelmacher has set his sights on drug-delivery with Bionaut Labs, a startup aiming to use tiny robots for precision drug dosing. Bionaut recently won $20 million in venture capital funding.
Get the full story from our sister site, Drug Delivery Business.