U.S. Diagnostic Firm Expanding its Microbubble Franchise to Battle Brain Tumors

CarThera, a French company that designs and develops ultrasound-based medical devices to treat brain disorders, has entered into a strategic collaboration with U.S.-based company Lantheus. The company will supply microbubbles for use with CarThera’s SonoCloud device in the treatment of recurrent glioblastoma.
 
CarThera’s SonoCloud device is a proprietary implantable device designed to open the blood-brain barrier (BBB) using low-intensity pulsed ultrasound (LIPU) and microbubbles. Recurrent glioblastoma (rGBM) is the first clinical indication that could benefit from the SonoCloud. Gliobastoma is a lethal and devastating form of brain cancer with a median survival rate of around 15 months after diagnosis. SonoCloud is intended to facilitate effective delivery of chemotherapy to brain tumors to improve efficacy. CarThera is presently running a pilot (phase 1/2a) study in France and in the United-States (NCT 03744026) and is planning to launch a pivotal study in the upcoming year.
 
For these clinical studies and for future commercialization, CarThera will partner with Lantheus for the supply of microbubbles. Lantheus Holdings Inc., parent company of Lantheus Medical Imaging Inc., develops, manufactures, and commercializes diagnostic imaging agents and products. Lantheus’ microbubbles will become an integrated component of the SonoCloud product. This agreement strengthens the configuration of the SonoCloud system and secures the supply of the microbubbles for the coming years.
 
“We are delighted to enter into this agreement with Lantheus and to reinforce our relationship as we develop our SonoCloud technology,” said Frederic Sottilini, CEO of CarThera. “With Lantheus’ expertise in the field of microbubbles, combined with CarThera’s novel and proprietary ultrasound technology, we see the potential for a long-term, highly successful collaboration. We look forward to working together to advance our promising technology and to help patients with the very debilitating, and all too often fatal, disease of glioblastoma.”
 
This collaboration also directly aligns with Lantheus’ growth strategies of pursuing new applications for its microbubble franchise and expansion into oncology.
 
“We are excited to work with CarThera to extend our microbubble franchise into the oncology field to target glioblastoma, a traumatic disease with significant unmet medical needs, where clinicians and patients have seen little improvement in its management,” said Mary Anne Heino, president and CEO of Lantheus. “Our collaboration leverages both companies’ strengths to bring novel solutions to the healthcare community. As the use of microbubbles in diagnostic and therapeutic applications gains more interest around the world, working with CarThera demonstrates our commitment to driving Lantheus’ microbubble into new disease areas with great potential for significant improvement in patient outcomes.”

SonoCloud is a medical device developed by CarThera. It emits ultrasound to temporarily increase the permeability of the blood vessels in the brain. Invented by Pr Alexandre Carpentier, SonoCloud is an implant inserted into the skull and activated prior to chemotherapy. Several minutes of low-intensity ultrasound opens the blood brain barrier for six hours and increases the concentration of therapeutic molecules in the brain. SonoCloud technology is appropriate for the treatment of brain diseases in general. Oncology indications are the company’s primary target but investigations are ongoing into other conditions, including neurodegenerative diseases and Alzheimer’s disease in particular.