The backstory on PurMinds’ investment in Israeli psychedelic drug company IMIO Life

Privately-held PurMinds BioPharma (Burlington, Ontario, Canada) recently announced an investment in the psychedelic drug company IMIO Life Ltd., a subsidiary of Tel Aviv–based Nextage Therapeutics Ltd. (TASE:NXTG). Nextage Therapeutics is itself a division of the pharmaceutical company Nextar Chempharma Solutions (Ness Ziona, Israel).

We reached out to PurMinds’ chief strategy and financial officer, Aron Buchman, to learn more about the alliance.

PPW: How did the relationship between PurMinds and IMIO Life come about?

Aron Buchman: PurMinds and the Nextar Family have had a corporate relationship since 2019. The initial R&D focus was on PurMinds’ patented nano-extraction technology.

PurMinds CEO Janet Qi visited Nextar Chempharma at their ODEC-accredited facilities at the prestigious Weizman Science Park, Israel. Unfortunately, the collaboration between the Nextar family of companies and the PurMinds family of companies was hindered by the COVI…

Read more
  • 0

San Diego company aiming to target glioblastoma with nanotechnology-based approach

Intermediate magnification micrograph of a glioblastoma. HPS stain image courtesy of Wikimedia.

The emerging biopharmaceutical company Global Cancer Technology (GCT; San Diego) is developing a novel x-ray activated therapy to treat glioblastoma, which remains stubbornly difficult to treat.

GCT has a licensing agreement with the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) for a drug delivery platform that unites a nanocrystal to a prodrug that can be activated using radiosurgery. GCT has also acquired two patents for investigational drugs that can cross the blood-brain barrier. One is an inhibitor of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K), a type of enzyme involved in several cellular functions that facilitates rapid growth in glioblastoma. The other compound targets Vps34, a phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase. Both compounds modulate autophagy, a regenerative cellular process. According to UCSD researchers, autophag…

Read more
  • 0