- Adventia Pharma considers that the first phase of the project has been developed as planned from a technical and budgetary point of view

​​​​​​- The research group of the Hospital de La Paz has advanced in the review of the nutritional situation of cancer patients described in the bibliography worldwide

- Work has already begun on the conditioning of the raw material by microencapsulation to reduce its organoleptic impact

The ALISENOC R&D project has "satisfactorily" passed the first of the three technical-economic milestones included in its work plan. This has been stated by the management team of Adventia Pharma, which leads this initiative whose objective is to develop a diet based on nutrients and bioactive compounds for the nutritional treatment of cancer patients, thus improving their quality of life.

During this first phase of project execution, the research group on Nutrition and Functional Foods (NUTRinvest), from the Madrid University Hospital of La Paz, has made progress in reviewing the nutritional situation of cancer patients described in the worldwide bibliography. To this end, different pages of institutions and organizations related to nutrition and nutritional support, as well as to the study pathology: cancer, have been consulted. In this analysis, the existing documentation about nutrients or bioactive compounds in foods that show scientific evidence about their enhancing benefits of antitumor treatments received by cancer patients has been verified.

This bibliographic review has been very useful to find a great variety of nutrients and compounds that are beneficial for the nutritional health of these patients. However, before approving their introduction in the supplement that ALISENOC will develop, the legal recognition of each of them by Adventia and the legal team of the AINIA technology center has been verified, and, consequently, all those that lacked of still result at the legislative level. 

At the same time, NUTRinvest has also prepared a table of oral nutritional supplementation products with a specific indication in the "cancer patient" leaflet that are currently marketed in Spain. This table has served as a basis for comparing the information on these products with the proposed nutritional profile to be designed by ALISENOC.

From Adventia Pharma, in collaboration with AINIA, they have begun to develop the conditioning tests of the raw materials, focusing on reducing their organoleptic impact. Based on the technical and bibliographic information collected and based on AINIA's previous experience, microencapsulation technologies have been chosen. Furthermore, thanks to this literature review, several coating materials for this microencapsulation have also been selected, based on their potential interest based on their proven reduction in organoleptic impact.

On the other hand, the pilot-level preparation of liquid diets has begun in order to evaluate and adjust the formulas to the physicochemical quality criteria of the product after processing. Thus, the influence of mixing and homogenization process operations on the physicochemical characteristics of complete liquid diets is also evaluated on a laboratory scale.

ALISENOC was launched in September 2017 with an estimated duration of three years. Adventia Pharma is leading this project, which has a budget of more than 400,000 euros, co-financed by the CDTI with ERDF funds from the European Union.