MIT Koch Institute
July 2, 2019
Taris Biomedical, founded by David H. Koch Professor of Engineering Michael Cima and David H. Koch Institue Professor Robert Langer, has made exciting headway in translating its approach to treating muscle-invasive bladder cancer. TAR-200 is an implantable device developed by the Cima and Langer Labs that continuously administers gemcitabine, a chemotherapy drug, for multiple weeks. First, Taris shared positive results from an ongoing study of the device alone, which suggest therapeutic benefit to both patients who undergo radical cystectomy and those unfit for surgical intervention. Two weeks later, the company announced the dosing of the first patient in a new clinical trial, in collaboration with Bristol-Myers Squibb, that combines the device with nivolumab, an approved cancer immunotherapy.