OncoLize
About
About
OncoLize originated in Maastricht and is operating from Utrecht in close collaboration with Academic hospitals in Amsterdam, Leiden and Nijmegen.
The founders are senior experts in hydrogels and polymer-enabled drug delivery and in biotech start-ups with extensive mileage in major Pharma and Chemicals companies.
Our highly specialized team is focused on formulation, scale-up and translating our products to clinical practise.
We work in close collaboration with global experts from Amsterdam, Leiden and Radboud University Medical Centers, and we are supported by funding from the Dutch Cancer Foundation and EU-grant consortium PalaCros.
We develop high performance oncology products for localized delivery of drugs, making our products:
- Much better at eradicating solid tumors
- With far less side-effects
- And triple A: Accessible and Affordable for All
We offer the most direct way of targeted delivery:
By injecting the depot into the tumor mass, and keeping the drugs where they should be...
Our method of delivery is not much different from the well-established way biopsies are taken from tumors... but then the other way around. By literally using the same equipment and infra-structure to inject our depots directly in those tumors, we keep it feasible and fast to implement in oncology practise.
Our injectable drug depots are simple to use with existing endoscopes and catheters, imageable, effective, safe and affordable.
Meet Our Team
Management Team
Mike de Leeuw, MSc, BBA
CEO/CFO - Founder
The company was founded by Mike de Leeuw (CEO), who previously founded InGell Labs (2010), Branching Tree (2008) and DSM BioMedical (2005) and has a track record in re-structuring and re-financing other start-up’s within the controlled release/ biomedical materials space for drug delivery and cell therapy.
Ethlinn Van Gaal, PhD
CTO
Ethlinn joined as of October 2025, focusing on product & process development and CMC to scale-up for clinical trials. She brings along a rich experience in polymer-enabled drug delivery development from OctoPlus, Crystal Therapeutics and several other biotechs
Sonia Macia, MD, PhD
CMO
Dr. Sonia Macia joined as of April 2025, preparing the company for its first clinical trials in Pancreatic cancer. Her wide and deep experience in translational medicine and clinical practise in oncology make the transition to specialist doctors, nurses and patients a smooth and efficient process.
Advisors
Co-founder
Mike was joined by dr. Leo de Leede (Co-founder), a long-time biopharmaceutical expert using polymer-enabled drug delivery in a.o. Organon/MSD – Yamanuchi/Astellas – OctoPlus/Dr.Reddy – Branching Tree/ InGell Labs.
Scientific Advisor & Co-founder
As of April 2023, Helena Kelly joined as Co-founder. She is head of the Pharmaceutical School and a full time professor at RCSI and the inventor of the licensed OncoLize Technology platform.
She currently serves as Scientific Advisor to Oncolize, supporting the company's scientific strategy and innovation.
We currently prepare advanced formulations for First-in-Human trials using a selection of well-known Chemo-drugs. This is based on our successful PDX and GEMM-mice studies performed at Leiden University Medical Center and CROs with human Pancreatic Cancer biopsies and Lung Cancer cell-lines implanted subcutaneously.
These aggressive and drug-resistant tumors were halted in their growth or even diminished in their tumor mass and viability… without the support of an intact immune system, which human patients normally do have.
Standard-of-Care oncology drugs such as Gemcitabine, Paclitaxel, Cis-Platin and other drugs are loaded into our ChemoGellTM-platform and injected intra-tumoral at much lower quantities than systemic dosing would dictate.
The results: complete or prolonged survival, signs of immune activation and no adverse reactions, neither locally or systemically.
Based on our recent pancreatic tumor studies:
- The level of the drug inside the target tissue is up to 70x-170x higher than ever could be achieved through infusion or pills;
- The level of drug outside the target tissue is up to 1000x lower than inside the target tissue, often not measurable anymore within a day, while locally present for days;
- The total drug-load can be up to 70-80x less than via intravenous chemo-delivery in humans.
We work with our patent protected ChemoGellTM platform which is:
i) Faster to formulate and with a broader range of different types of drugs,
ii) Easier to scale-up;
iii) Faster to obtain approvals with; and
iv) Far less expensive to develop and manufacture …
... compared to other well-known Hydrogel platforms.
Endoscopists, Surgeons and Interventional Radiologists can inject our products straight into the tumor using standard-of-care guided catheters, long, thin (biopsy-) needles and Endoscope needles under image guidance.
Over time, the depot releases the drug inside the tumor while keeping it there in sufficiently high concentrations… where it should be!
We have dedicated ourselves to develop products that deal with the urgent unmet needs for the ‘rare and deadly tumor diseases’.
Why?
- Because we have seen too much suffering within our families, friends and colleagues.
- Because little progress has been made for aggressive Pancreatic-, Lung-, Liver-, Colon- and other less frequent occurring solid tumors.
- Because most new developments for these diseases come out very expensive, marginally effective, and certainly not accessible for all.
We believe that everybody should have access to the best possible care for these aggressive tumor diseases. We are certain that this can be done by localizing generic drugs and novel drugs alike, with much better effect, far less side-effects, and at much lower costs to patients and the national healthcare systems alike.
