Beyond Biotech - the podcast from Labiotech

Beyond biology: Nanobiotix's physics-first approach to cancer

Labiotech Episode 211

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 31:21

What if the key to beating cancer wasn't a new drug, but a new way of thinking about matter itself? That's the question Laurent Lévy asked when he co-founded Nanobiotix over twenty years ago — and it's a question that is now producing some genuinely compelling answers in the clinic.

Nanobiotix is a Paris-based biotech pioneering what they call physics-based nanomedicine. Their lead asset is a radioenhancer made of hafnium oxide nanoparticles, designed to be injected directly into a tumor and amplify the destructive power of radiotherapy from within — without increasing damage to surrounding healthy tissue. It is currently in Phase 3 trials in head and neck cancer.

But that's only half the story. The company's Nanoprimer platform is now emerging as a potential new engine for growth — with the promise of making an entirely new class of genetic medicines work better.

  • 02:47 Meet Laurent Lévy
  • 06:04 What physics offers that biology cannot 
  • 11:12 How JNJ-1900 (NBTXR3) works 
  • 15:14 The immune effect 
  • 18:16 Pipeline milestones ahead
  • 20:56 The Curadigm Nanoprimer platform 
  • 25:32 The oversubscribed €85 million raise

Interested in being a sponsor of an episode of our podcast? Discover how you can get involved here! 

Stay updated by subscribing to our newsletter

To dive deeper into the topic: