GT Medical Technologies : 2023 Arizona Bioscience Company of the Year
Channel: AZ Bio
Date: 01/10/2023

For their commitment to Improving the Lives of Patients with Brain Tumors and the impact they are making, GT Medical Technologies is the 2023 Arizona Bioscience Company of the Year.

Planting Seeds of Hope for Brain Tumor Patients

For decades, clinicians have sought better treatment options for patients with brain tumors to target tumor cells while preserving healthy tissue. 
Since 2005, the standard of care has been surgery to remove as much of the tumor as possible. A combination of chemotherapy and external beam radiation often follows. The drawback of this approach is that it can take weeks to initiate external beam radiation therapy, which leaves a window for the tumor cells to repopulate. As a result, patient outcomes remain poor today.

In 2010, a radiation oncologist and department chairman at Barrow Neurological Institute was discouraged by the lack of progress in his field.  Driven to raise the standard of care and improve the quality of life for patients, a group of brain tumor specialists joined forces to address this critical, unmet need. This desperation for better outcomes for their patients led to innovation.  Together with medical device experts, they reimagined brain brachytherapy for operable glioblastomas (GBMs), meningiomas, brain metastases, and other brain tumors.

Thus, the idea of GammaTile® was born. The radiation oncologist and a team of four other brain tumor specialists used their understanding of radiation oncology, brain tumor clinical needs, neurosurgical practice, and physics to integrate their specific disciplines to develop GammaTile. A prototype device was created, physics aspects were optimized, and a manufacturing process was devised. Eventually, a clinical trial with the prototype led to FDA clearance for recurrent brain tumors in 2018, with an expanded clearance for all newly diagnosed malignant brain tumors granted in 2020.FDA clearance is a significant milestone in the neuro-oncology space. GammaTile Therapy is the only GBM treatment to be FDA-cleared in the past decade and one of only 7 FDA-cleared or -approved GBM treatments in the past 50 years.

GammaTile® is an innovative technology that improves outcomes and reduces the burden of treatment for patients. Implanted at the time of brain tumor removal surgery, GammaTile Therapy is a 1x, immediate radiation treatment that puts time on the patient’s side. About the size of a postage stamp, the bioresorbable collagen GammaTile® contains radiation sources. The tile acts as a structural offset to prevent the radiation sources from migrating and helps protect healthy tissue. Placed by the neurosurgeon in the last few minutes of brain tumor removal surgery, the GammaTiles immediately begin to deliver targeted radiation to the tumor site.  GammaTile® delivers a dose of radiation while the patient goes about their recovery and daily life and allows the patient to forgo up to 30 daily external beam radiation treatments. Clinical studies have shown that GammaTile® improves local tumor control, which can extend survival.

“Our purpose at GT Medical Technologies is to improve the lives of patients with brain tumors—advancing treatment and preserving patients’ quality of life,” stated CEO Matthew Likens. 

The company, which was founded in Phoenix and is headquartered in Tempe, is a growing contributor to the Arizona Bioscience community.  GT Medical Technologies currently employs over 65 team members who are contributing to this growth, all guided by the company operating principles of patient/customer focus, constructive engagement, collaboration, consistency, compliance, creativity, value, and perseverance.  

GammaTile is available in 100+ hospitals across the United States, including world-renowned institutions like MD Anderson, Memorial Sloan Kettering, and the Mayo Clinic. GT Medical Technologies recently celebrated the milestone of the 1,000th patient treated, with 400 patients being treated in the past year alone.  Fueled by a $45 Million oversubscribed Series C round of financing that closed in March 2023, there are 4 clinical trials evaluating GammaTile that are currently enrolling, and an additional trial evaluating GammaTile in recurrent glioblastoma will open at the end of 2023.