Local Treatment- Systemic Response
Lumeda is developing a powerful new therapy for treating lung cancer that selectively destroys tumor cells locally, while potentiating the immune system to recognize and attack residual and distant disease cells. Other oncology therapies such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy are unspecific and can be immunosuppressive in destroying immune components along with the cancer. In contrast to these therapies, photodynamic therapy (PDT) does not present toxicities or severe side effects. Our goal is to advance PDT as a more tolerable treatment for patients with advanced lung cancer and other pleural malignancies.
Lumeda’s DigiLum™ system enables thoracic surgeons to precisely and reliably administer PDT intraoperatively during standard of care video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) procedures. Our initial indication applies PDT as an immune adjuvant in combination with immune checkpoint blockade to improve patient response to immunotherapy. Clinical studies are currently open and recruiting patients to investigate safety of DigiLum™ PDT applied intraoperatively in the pleura, and safety and initial efficacy assessment of combination PDT + αPD-1 immunotherapy. This milestone study is the first clinical evaluation of PDT in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitors as a synergistic antitumor therapy in treating NSCLC with pleural disease.