For people living with bladder diseases, traditional treatment approaches are often therapeutically inadequate, very uncomfortable, and offer only fleeting relief from debilitating pain. MIT’s Professor Michael Cima proposed to solve this problem by creating a device that could deliver diverse therapies directly to the bladder using minimally invasive urologic procedures. Sustained drug release over weeks or months would provide extended treatment and relief from symptoms. With a grant from the Deshpande Center, Cima built a prototype of an osmotic pump: a semi-permeable silicone tube with a solid drug core. This work led to the founding of TARIS Biomedical.
On December 20, 2019, Johnson & Johnson announced the acquisition of TARIS Biomedical. The company’s lead clinical-stage product, TAR-200, uses the proprietary TARIS System, which features a silicone-based drug delivery device that allows for the continuous release of medication into the bladder. “The TARIS technology provides a first-in-class clinical-stage platform to evaluate a novel, locally delivered therapeutics for patients with localized bladder cancer,” said Peter Lebowitz, M.D., Ph.D., Global Therapeutic Area Head, Oncology, Janssen Research & Development, LLC. TARIS will maintain a research presence in Lexington, Massachusetts and become part of Janssen R&D’s Oncology Therapeutic Area within Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson. Click here for more info.
