CerFlux Awarded $100,000 Innovate Alabama Grant to Advance Cancer Research from Lab-to-Life

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., (Apr 11, 2024) – CerFlux, Inc., creators of advanced personalized medicine technology for cancer treatment, announced today that it has been awarded a $100,000 Innovate Alabama grant. This competitive grant award will support the development of our innovative ChipMux® technology, aimed at revolutionizing the approach to cancer treatment.

Every year, about 2 million Americans are diagnosed with cancer. Worse, treatment turns out to be ineffective for about 75% of solid tumor patients who receive systemic therapy. This is because every tumor is distinct in makeup and response to treatment. Unfortunately, a generalized treatment approach is forced upon a disease that is uniquely personal due to lack of personalized predictive tools. Consequently, patients are exposed to several rounds of potentially harmful overtreatment until the right regimen is found, imposing a substantial physical, emotional, and financial burden. Adding insult to injury, over 40% of patients deplete their entire life savings in just 2 years.

CerFlux ChipMux technology addresses this critical, urgent, and unmet need for accessible and affordable predictive technologies that identify optimal therapy regimens and strategically eliminate ineffective options. This project represents a major departure from the generalized one-size-fits-none approach to cancer treatment. If successful, our patented biopsy chip multiplexer technology will screen multiple anticancer regimens simultaneously on intact core biopsy tissue from each patient’s own tumor – before treatment – to identify the right treatment for that patient. The ultimate aim of this groundbreaking technology is to eliminate ineffective treatment regimens and identify the most effective regimens for each patient on an individualized basis.

“During this SBIR Phase I project, we will address several key objectives from bioprinting 3D tumor proxies to demonstrating the predictive capacity of this platform for personalized cancer treatment,” explains Dr. Karim Budhwani, CEO of CerFlux, Inc. “If successful, this personalized approach will not only reduce the cost of cancer treatment but, more importantly, it will substantially lighten the emotional, physical, and financial burden suffered by patients.”

In an era where precision and personalization are becoming increasingly vital in medicine, ChipMux technology holds the promise to set a new standard in cancer treatment: The right treatment at the right time for each patient on an individualized basis. Predictive technologies like ChipMux – that match each patient with the right treatment regimen BEFORE treatment is administered – will make a profound impact on the lives of cancer patients, offer substantial cost savings to insurance providers, and strengthen US leadership in advanced research.

​The Innovate Alabama Supplemental Grant Program provides non-dilutive funding to companies that have previously received federal SBIR or STTR grants. The grants are designed to support the growth and success of Alabama-based companies, as well as recruit new businesses to the state. The receipt of this grant highlights the potential impact of ChipMux on improving cancer treatment and patient outcomes. The grant will fund activities over the next year to help bring us a step closer in making personalized precision cancer treatment a reality for patients around the world.

About CerFlux, Inc.

CerFlux, Inc. is a Birmingham (Alabama) based cancer biotech company. CerFlux is creating advanced, personalized medicine solutions, including its patented ChipMux® biopsy-on-a-chip for simultaneously testing multiple anticancer agents directly on standard-of-care tumor biopsy tissue. Our goal is to apply this biopsy-on-a-chip technology across the cancer care continuum; from improving AI in cancer drug response prediction with PROPHET, predicting clinical efficacy for preclinical compounds with PEER® to improving clinical trials with POETRY and identifying the most effective cancer treatments for each patient on an individualized basis with POET®. By building solutions that quickly and clearly separate optimal from ineffective options, we will improve treatment outcomes and quality of life for cancer patients.

About Innovate Alabama

Innovate Alabama is Alabama’s first statewide public-private partnership focused on entrepreneurship, technology and innovation with a mission to help innovators grow roots here in Alabama. Innovate Alabama was established to implement the initiatives and recommendations set forth in the Alabama Innovation Commission’s report, including smart policy solutions that will create a more resilient, inclusive and robust economy to remain competitive in a 21st-century world. With founding CEO Cynthia Crutchfield leading the charge, Innovate Alabama is also made up of a board of 11 innovation leaders appointed by Gov. Ivey, collaborating across sectors to advance industries, drive technology and facilitate an environment where innovation and entrepreneurship thrive. Learn more about Innovate Alabama at www.innovatealabama.org.

Additional Information

To request collateral materials for publication or to schedule interviews with principals from CerFlux, Inc., please contact Rachel Stacey at rss@CerFlux.com for availability.