- Rakovina Therapeutics (RKV) receives funding to advance cancer treatments
- The company is receiving up to $122,865 from the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program
- The funding will assist the company in developing assays and animal models to evaluate one of the company’s treatments for advancement to toxicology and/or investigational new drug (IND) studies
- Rakovina Therapeutics is developing new cancer treatments based on novel DNA-damage response technologies
- Shares of Rakovina Therapeutics (RKV) are unchanged at $0.14
Rakovina Therapeutics (RKV) has received funding to advance cancer treatments.
According to a press release, the company is receiving up to $122,865 from the National Research Council of Canada’s Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP).
Rakovina said the funding will help it develop assays and animal models to evaluate the company’s DNA damage response inhibitors. The company said the goal will be to select one or more lead compounds to advance toward toxicology and/or investigational new drug IND)-enabling studies.
The lead drug candidate comes from Rakovina’s kt-3000 series dual PARP-HDAC inhibitors and has shown activity against tumors that have not responded to other US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved PARP inhibitors.
DNA damage response (DNR) is how a person’s genes sense and respond to DNA damage, cell cycle regulation, replication stress responses and cell death.
Defects in DDR can lead to cancer formation but can also provide opportunities to treat cancer with target therapies.
First-generation DDR inhibitors, otherwise known as PARP inhibitors, have been used to treat certain types of breast and ovarian cancers. The next generation of DDR inhibitors is, however, an unmet medical need that the company is targeting.
“This NCR IRAP project will expand our capacity to evaluate how our drug candidates behave in the body including how they reach their target tissues. We look forward to delivering more good news as we progress towards selecting the optimal candidate for advancement to human clinical trials,” Mads Daugaard, chief scientific officer of Rakovina Therapeutics, said in a release.
Rakovina Therapeutics is focused on developing new cancer treatments based on novel-DNA damage response technologies.
Shares of Rakovina Therapeutics (RKV) remain unchanged at C$0.14 on Wednesday.
