A phase 0 fund to test academic compounds in humans with microdoses and imaging
Before investing in a full trial, give a few patients a tiny dose of a new compound and use scans and blood tests to see whether it reaches the tumour and hits its target. Fund these small studies as a matter of routine.
Phase 0 (exploratory IND) studies use microdoses or short courses to measure pharmacokinetics, target engagement (via PET tracers, tumour biopsies or pharmacodynamic markers) and biodistribution before committing to IND-enabling toxicology at full scale. They are cheap, fast and answer the question that kills most academic compounds late: does it get where it needs to go and do what it should in people? A dedicated fund pays for radiolabelling, tracer synthesis, phase 0 unit costs and biopsy-based pharmacodynamics for academic assets, with a rule that assets failing target engagement are dropped and published.
- The valley of death between lab and product · Most academic discoveries die before anyone tests them in people because nobody funds the middle step.
- Preclinical models that do not predict people · Nine in ten cancer drugs that work in mice fail in humans. Our models are the reason.