Changing the paradigm of cancer therapy and beyond

Remo Moomiaie-Qajar, M.D.
Founder and CEO

Dr. Moomiaie-Qajar is a trained surgeon from Yale University with a long academic history of innovating technologies in medicine and translating them into commercially viable products. Dr. Moomiaie-Qajar has 15 years of experience incubating technologies from start-up or early stage level to exit. His background as an academic researcher, physician, and entrepreneur brings an unique trifecta of perspective and experience to Cytonus. He holds a number of US and International Patents and has successfully funded and launched a number of Life Science companies. He is currently the CEO of Remo CRO, a full service CRO and Dr. Moomiaie-Qajar is an active member of a number of National Angel Investment Groups and manages a Life Science seed fund.

Richard Klemke, PhD.
Founder and CSO

Dr. Klemke has over 25 years of experience working in academia and the biotechnology sectors in the San Diego area. Dr. Klemke is Professor of Pathology and Cancer Biology at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center, where he serves as the director of the Cancer Imaging Network and the Pathology Department’s Proteomics Center of Excellence. He earned his Ph.D. in Molecular Cell Biology from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. Dr. Klemke was a research scientist in the immunology department at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) before joining UC San Diego and Moores in 2006. He has been an active consultant in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries for more than two decades, and is the founder of BioSystems Consulting in San Diego. He is internationally recognized for his work in stem cell biology, carcinogenesis, and therapeutic drug development, using proteomics, computational biology, and unique cell-based and preclinical animal models of cancer. His work has produced novel therapeutics directed at cancer and has unlocked newfound insights and concepts that explain how malignant tumors develop and avoid the immune system to spread through the body.

CARGOCYTES™: Engineered enucleated cells that carry multiple therapeutic payloads in a precise, safe, and predictable manner to specific targets (cancer cells). They are specifically designed to locate and activate the host’s immune system to attack cancer cells. The advantages of using our proprietary CARGOCYTE™ platform as compared to other Adoptive Cellular Therapy (ACTs) are:

TIL- Tumor Infiltrating Lymphocyte
CAR-Chimeric Antigen Receptors

Time-lapse video of Lifeact-RFP hTERT MSCs and derived Cargocytes (red) migrating through 1 µm and 15µm constrictions inside a microfluidic device towards chemoattractant (FBS). The enucleated Cargocytes migrate faster through the small constrictions, likely due to the absence of the large/dense nucleus. The MSCs and Cargocytes were stained with nuclear dye Hoechst 33342 (blue). Video courtesy of J. Keys (Lammerding Lab, Cornell).

We have a unique cell-therapy that expands the possibility of immunotherapy to solid tumors as well as hematologic tumors and beyond. We believe our cell-transportation platform is the safest and most cost efficient in the world today with unlimited applications in oncology and many other diseases.

Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is the sentinel cancer Cytonus is targeting with our GM1215© immunotherapy.

Pancreatic Cancer Facts:

• 55,440 will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the US (2018)
• 44,330 will die from pancreatic cancer in the US (2018)
• No change in survival rates in the past 40 years
• Average survival period is 5-7 months after diagnosis
• The 5-year relative survival rate is 3%
• Pancreatic cancer may cause only vague symptoms that could indicate many different conditions leading to late diagnosis and poorer outcomes.
  *Source for statistics: American Cancer Society: Cancer Facts & Figures 2018