nanoTherics, Staffordshire, UK, was awarded a Research & Development (R&D) Grant from the regional development agency Advantage West Midlands, which will enable the company to continue development of novel gene transfection technologies.

The company’s products apply a patent-pending technology using nanoparticles and magnetic fields to facilitate delivery of biomolecules, such as DNA, into living cells, an opportunity for more effective non-viral gene therapy, an area demanding safer technology to treat genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis.

“The grant will enable us to ensure our technologies will continue to offer improvements and significant advantages to end-users of our systems. We aim to introduce a range of products which will shortly be initiated with the launch of the magnefect-nano, a flexible device which provides up to 1000-fold better transfection efficiency than cationic lipid agents for short transfection times,” says Dr. Linda Cammish, chief executive officer.
 
 
This article was published in Drug Discovery & Development magazine: Vol. 12, No. 1, January, 2009, pp. 10.