Hyderabad:  After inventing Cytotron to treat cancers, osteoarthritis and multiple sclerosis, Scalene Cybernetics is now taking this novel device to the U.S.

The Bangalore-based firm has joined hands with two partners from Maryland to get approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to conduct clinical trials, develop the device and market it in the U.S, Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. Scalene Cybernetics has partnered with Amarex Corporation, a clinical research organisation, and Sheris Scalene Sciences (SSS), a venture fund of Amarex Corporation.

The joint venture was announced earlier this week during Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley's visit to Hyderabad undertaken as part of his six-day India trip to boost trade and investment. Centre for Advanced Research and Development (CARD) of Scalene Cybernetics will act as manufacturer and scientific advisor while another life science company ABV and SSS will contribute to the clinical trials and regulatory approval costs.

The state-of-the-art therapeutic, non-invasive device uses a patented technology to treat regenerative and degenerative diseases such as cancers, musculoskeletal diseases, particularly osteoarthritis and multiple sclerosis. It is already available to patients in 15 specialised clinics in six countries -- India, the Netherlands, Malaysia, Singapore, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

Rajah Vijay Kumar, who led the team that developed Cytotron after 24 years of research, told that the partners from Maryland would invest in making the device for the American market. Kumar, who is Scalene Cybernetics chairman and chief scientific officer of CARD, said the clinical trials of the device in India had excellent results. "During the last one year, about 1,000 patients in India were treated through this device."

The firm has so far sold 23 machines, each costing about 20 million. Kumar, a pioneering researcher in biophysics and radiobiology, pointed out that the device, which is a result of research that began in 1987, can treat only solid cancer tumours. "This device is used for tissue engineering, mainly for treatment of protein-linked diseases. Diseases like diabetes, arthritis, cancer are caused by one or the other protein not functioning. This device alters the signalling pathway of the protein."

"If a protein is to turn on, it has to get a signal. That signal is provided by this machine so that protein gets triggered and the disease reversed." "In osteoarthritis, cartilage tissue does not grow. It gets worn out but does not replenish. There is a protein which we trigger to get cartilage grow again," he explained.