This L.A. start-up is building tiny injectable robots to attack tumors

Doctors take a microscopic craft loaded with cancer-killing chemicals, inject it into the human body, and drive it to a malignant tumor to deliver its payload before making a quick exit. Jinxing Li, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Michigan State University who works on medical microrobotics, called Fischer’s team at Max Planck “one of the pioneers in the technology.” Li said he expects Bionaut will have a number of new competitors in the coming years, as microrobots are incorporated in an increasing number of medical procedures. “I would give them a lot of credit for figuring out a space where they can make an impact and justify how they’ll be competitive with traditional pharmaceutical approaches,” he said. “It’s a rare disease, there is no current cure, and they’re delivering proven and approved chemo payloads that kill tumor cells,” said Kevin Zhang, a partner at Upfront Ventures who led the fund’s investment in Bionaut. “The best way to improve your odds, other than having a good solution,” Zhang said, “is to pick the right problem to go after with high unmet needs.” If the glioma treatment makes it through clinical trials, the plan is to expand the technology to other central nervous system conditions and other areas that are difficult to target with drugs, such as inside the eye.