For a long time, brain cancers – and glioblastomas in particular – have been confined to cumbersome, poorly-targeted treatments, and remain among the most feared. In recent years, however, laboratories have been exploring new avenues at the frontiers of medicine and physics. One example is an innovative approach to harness iron to trigger lethal oxidative stress in the most aggressive cancer cells.
In the midst of all this scientific effervescence, a start-up from the Mines Saint-Étienne incubator is attempting a singular breakthrough. Called Oncoelectronics, this start-up combines biocompatibility, miniaturization and electrophysiology to offer a novel solution: a flexible implantable device capable of delivering electric fields localized in the brain and designed to slow down, or even halt, tumor progression.
This technological challenge is part of an approach that is as pragmatic as it is humanistic: in the absence of a cure, Oncoelectronics aims to postpone the fateful deadline, with simplicity and precision.
A different idea of care
For the time being, glioblastomas cannot be cured. The average survival rate is around 15 months after diagnosis, according to data from the National Cancer Institute. Against this backdrop, Oncoelectronics does not claim to be a miracle worker. “We’re not in a position to promise to cure the disease,” concedes Rod O’Connor, Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder of Oncoelectronics, “but we can try to prolong life, and maintain a decent quality of life.” Sometimes, offering a few extra months or even years of life is all that counts: a birth, a party, an extra summer.
Behind this ambition lies a certain vision of care: one in which innovation is not synonymous with absolute promise, but with a commitment to pushing back the boundaries of what’s possible, to making every day gained sweeter and more dignified. In this age of disruptive technologies, Oncoelectronics reminds us that progress can also be measured in precious minutes, in moments returned to those who thought they had been lost.
Ultra-targeted electrical impulses
Oncoelectronics’ project is based on a hyper-targeted treatment, implanted at the very site of the tumor, to slow its progression. Instead of chemotherapy or radiotherapy, the start-up relies on electric fields. Specifically, a pulsed electric current emitted locally via implantable flexible polymers, designed to disrupt the growth of cancer cells.
“Our aim is to send a current to the tissues to kill cancer cells,” sums up Rod O’Connor. This researcher at the Centre de microélectronique de Provence (CMP), located on the Aix-Marseille-Provence Georges Charpak campus of Mines Saint-Étienne, has spent twelve years in France working in the fields of cancer research, bioelectronics, biotechnology and neuroscience. In the course of this work, he demonstrated that well-calibrated electrical pulses could induce localized destruction of cancerous tissue. Tests carried out successively on cells, organoids (three-dimensional mini-organisms) and mice then confirmed the potential of such a device.
A transatlantic alliance…
Although Oncoelectronics is based on years of rigorous research and solid scientific foundations, its creation was, as is often the case, the result of a timely encounter. It was at a conference in Ljubljana, Slovenia devoted to medical technology that Rod O’Connor received the decisive impetus: “Some colleagues from a major medical device company convinced me that the technology I’d been working on for years deserved to get out of the laboratory, and that the right way to do it was to create a start-up. We’d already had positive results with mice, so it was absolutely essential to try and get as far as human trials.”
But this Professor of neurotechnology at Mines Saint-Étienne couldn’t see himself running a company on his own alongside his academic duties. He needed someone capable of transforming a scientific vision into a start-up project: that was Alanna Harlton, Canadian. Previously co-founder of NeurotechVan, a network dedicated to the democratization of brain technologies on the west coast of Canada, the entrepreneur already had experience in public research administration, diplomacy and in the neurotechnology ecosystem.
“I’d worked with scientists before, but this was something more. There was a real vision behind this project, a huge potential impact, and it also echoed a personal story, so I immediately wanted to be part of it,” she recounts. The duo was soon joined by a third co-founder, Martin Bača, a Slovak research engineer and technical director at Oncoelectronics. Rod O’Connor and this CMP colleague have been working closely together for seven years. “Martin is brilliant. He has a real grasp of materials, a solid grounding in electronic and chemical engineering, and above all, he knows how to link all the technologies. Alanna and I imagine and design… and he makes it happen! The crazy thing is, when he makes something, it works every time,” muses the CSO.
…with roots in Provence
Although Oncoelectronics was born of an international trio, it was in France that the project took shape. Incubated at the Impulse incubator, then at Mines Saint-Etienne’s TEAM incubator, the start-up benefited from a favorable ecosystem to develop and connect with partners. “I had a well-developed academic network, but the business world was another planet for me”, admits Rod O’Connor.
As a result, the start-up has established contacts with a number of leading cancer research establishments: the Institut Paoli-Calmettes in Marseille, Gustave Roussy in the Paris region and, most recently, the Hôpital Marie Lannelongue, which has a new innovation center focused on medical device development, MALIC. Oncoelectronics also received funding and an honorary loan from BPIfrance, in addition to an honorary loan from Initiative Grandes Ecoles et Universités (IGEU) at the end of 2024. The start-up is currently filing its first patents, and should soon begin a targeted fund-raising campaign.
And why France? Rod O’Connor explains: “I had the opportunity to travel between Canada, the UK and the USA, to compare innovation environments, and France always came up first in discussions with my peers.” For the researcher, between the active support of public authorities, well-structured aid schemes and a healthcare sector that favors experimentation, France offers a particularly propitious setting. “Not to mention the fact that I benefited from the Mines network. So it was a no-brainer! All these factors helped me convince Alanna [Harlton] to move from Canada to the South of France” concludes Rod O’Connor with a knowing smile for his co-founder, and now friend.
Designing smaller to go further
Today, Oncoelectronics is reducing the scale of the implant to a few centimeters, “to the same size to that of a pacemaker,” explains Rod O’Connor. The final device will be capable of delivering controlled and safe pulses while being implanted in a durable manner.
The preclinical validation plan follows a progressive logic: after organoids and mice, the next step will be in mini pigs – to get even closer to human anatomical constraints. Human clinical trials could begin as early as 2027, as part of a protocol overseen by partner hospitals. This ambitious timetable testifies to the team’s determination to transform their technology into an innovative and concrete solution for patients in therapeutic deadlock, who would see their lives prolonged and their quality of life dramatically improved.
