NaDeNo Steers EIC Accelerator Money to Nanoparticle Chemotherapy

Residual tumour deposits in the abdominal cavity, too small to detect or remove, are the leading cause of the high recurrence of advanced ovarian cancer, according to the company. NaDeNo Nanoscience, a Trondheim company spun out of the Norwegian research institute SINTEF in 2022, wants to treat those deposits where they sit: its lead candidate, PACAB-002, is the chemotherapy drug cabazitaxel packed into biodegradable polymer nanoparticles that are injected into the abdomen and release the drug over weeks.

The EIC Accelerator selected the project, PACAndTreat, at its October 2025 cut-off for blended finance. CORDIS records an EU contribution of €2,499,999 under grant agreement 101296865, running from 1 May 2026 to 30 April 2028, with the Commission's signature dated 29 May 2026. The company's own announcement of 17 February 2026 called the award "worth up to €10 million", and Innovation Norway put it at up to NOK 110 million, split into the €2.5 million grant and up to €7.5 million of equity from the EIC Fund. That equity is conditional: SINTEF's press release says it depends on matching money from existing and new investors, and no EIC Fund investment in NaDeNo has been announced by the company or the EIC.

An old drug in a slow-release particle

Cabazitaxel is a taxane used only for prostate cancer; it dissolves poorly in water, and its toxicity limits how much can be given, according to Norwegian SciTech News in January 2023. NaDeNo encapsulates it, without chemically changing the molecule, in particles of poly(alkyl cyanoacrylate), a degradable polymer of the same family used to close wounds. The company's July 2024 company presentation gives particle sizes of 100 to 180 nanometres, a drug load of 8 to 10% by weight, and a release in three phases: 30% at once, 40% over 12 hours, and 30% over more than four weeks.

The argument against the existing approach is about how long the drug stays where the tumours are. Drug washed into the abdomen in free form drains quickly, the company says on its PACAB-002 page, which limits the dose that reaches the tumour and raises systemic toxicity. The established local option for peritoneal spread, surgery followed by heated chemotherapy in the abdomen (HIPEC), is described in the 2023 article as strenuous for patients. NaDeNo's particles are meant to sit in the cavity, gather at tumour deposits and release the drug there.

The research is older than the company. Work began at SINTEF in 2012, and the US National Cancer Institute's nanotechnology characterisation laboratory accepted the first candidate into its free testing programme in August 2022, per the same article. A peer-reviewed study by SINTEF, NTNU and Oslo University Hospital researchers, including Mørch, published in Nanomedicine in 2023, found that encapsulation kept cabazitaxel in the abdominal cavity longer and raised drug levels in tumours in mouse and rat models, as Norwegian SciTech News reported in June 2023. A 2024 paper in the International Journal of Nanomedicine on intravenous variants declares that Mørch holds a patent issued to NaDeNo and a second one pending.

What the animal data say, and who says it

The headline efficacy figures come from the company. CORDIS quotes the project summary: "Preclinical studies demonstrated 100% survival and a 97% tumour weight reduction" compared with non-encapsulated cabazitaxel. The 2024 deck states more than 97% tumour reduction against the free drug after a single intraperitoneal dose in a mouse model of ovarian cancer spread, with six mice per group, measured at day 38 and repeated with industrial-scale material. The company website says a single dose doubled median survival against the free drug at the same dose, and that all animals given two doses were alive at day 100, the end of the study. These are animal results reported by the developer; no human data have been published.

The trial is authorised, not started

The EU's clinical trials register, CTIS, lists trial 2026-527184-15-00, "An open-label phase 1 dose-escalation study to evaluate safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, and exploratory assessments of PACAB-002 in patients with ovarian cancer with peritoneal spread", sponsored by Nadeno Nanoscience AS. The application was submitted on 4 August 2026, and the Netherlands authorised it on 16 October 2026, with Erasmus MC in Rotterdam as the listed site. The register gives an estimated recruitment start of 1 January 2027 and an estimated end of 31 December 2028, and marks it as the first administration to humans. The company announced the approval on 20 October, calling it its most important milestone so far. Its home page still says, on 4 November 2026, that the trial is under assessment with European regulators.

The European Medicines Agency's orphan register lists designation EU/3/26/3258 for cabazitaxel in the treatment of ovarian cancer, sponsor Nadeno Nanoscience AS, dated 28 July 2026. The company's news item on the designation is dated 22 June; the two sources give different dates. The EMA page states that orphan designation does not mean the medicine is available or authorised for use.

1. Clinical trial authorisationDoneAuthorised in the Netherlands on 16 October 2026, per CTIS.
2. Phase 1/2a start in the second half of 2026SlippedPhase 1 only so far, with recruitment estimated from January 2027.
3. Orphan designationGrantedEU/3/26/3258, dated 28 July 2026 in the EMA register.
4. Safety in patientsNot yet testedNo patient dosed as of 4 November 2026 in the public record.
5. EIC Fund equity of up to €7.5MNot announcedConditional on matching investors; no investment announced.

Six people, rising costs and NOK 30 million in the bank

The Brønnøysund Register Centre shows NaDeNo Nanoscience AS as an active private limited company with no bankruptcy or winding-up registered, six employees, share capital of NOK 1,713,980.40 entered on 6 February 2026, and accounts filed up to 2025. Its filed accounts show the loss growing from NOK 10.0 million in 2023 to NOK 18.3 million in 2024 and NOK 27.3 million in 2025, while wage costs rose from NOK 3.5 million to NOK 7.5 million. Operating income held between NOK 3.4 million and NOK 4.3 million a year; the register's summary does not say what it consists of, and the company has announced no product sales.

Equity was NOK 31.2 million at the end of 2023, NOK 44.4 million at the end of 2024 and NOK 36.7 million at the end of 2025, all of it paid-in capital. Adding back each year's loss, equity was topped up by NOK 31.4 million in 2024 and NOK 19.7 million in 2025; the register summary does not say where that money came from, and the company has announced no funding round with an amount. The 2023 article said only that a first raise from Norwegian investors with experience of SINTEF spin-offs had been completed. SINTEF says its venture arm has invested and that the company had support from the Research Council of Norway and Innovation Norway. Bank deposits stood at NOK 30.2 million at the end of 2025, before the EIC project started.

The 2024 deck put the capital need for the programme at €15 million. The larger EIC piece, the equity, depends on a co-investment that has not been announced. In April 2025 NaDeNo was given space at AstraZeneca's BioVentureHub in Gothenburg, per Oslo Science City, and SINTEF's February 2026 release mentions it too; neither describes a commercial agreement with AstraZeneca.

Where it fits in EU policy

Europe's Beating Cancer Plan, presented in February 2021 and reviewed in February 2025, names diagnosis and treatment among its key areas. The NaDeNo record touches several EU instruments at once: a decade of work at a Norwegian public research institute, an EU orphan designation, a trial authorised through the EU's CTIS register, and EIC money. The deck sets out how the company means to earn from it: the platform is offered to partners with hard-to-deliver molecules for co-development and out-licensing, and because cabazitaxel is an established active substance, the deck names the EMA hybrid application and the FDA 505(b)(2) route as approval paths.

The reporting is based on publicly available sources, listed below.