PCI Biotech Holding ASA
This article was originally published in Start Up
Executive Summary
PCI Biotech Holding is developing a light-directed drug delivery system with the potential to make drug delivery more efficient and targeted, and to reduce overall toxicity. The company's technology is based on the fact that cells absorb molecules, including proteins and other biological macromolecules, drug carriers such as antibodies and nanoparticles, and some small molecules, by engulfing them with the cell membrane, in a process called endocytosis. This creates an endosome, a small "bubble" of cell membrane enclosing the absorbed molecules. For the biologically active molecules to interact with the intracellular targets, they must be released from the endosome into the cytosol in a process called "endosomal escape."