Funding is being provided for leading-edge continued research into cancer.
Laurentian University and Health Sciences North Research Institute says Rna Diagnostics Incorporated, a cancer diagnostics company, has received $8-million dollars from iGan Partners and BDC Capital.
The discovery that chemotherapy treatment can promote RNA degradation in patient tumours was made in 2007 by Laurentian University professor Dr. Amadeo Parissenti and his research associate, Dr. Baoqing Guo.
Dr. Parissenti says the RNA disruption assay determines whether a patient is responding to cancer therapy during early treatment, independent of cancer type and cancer therapy.
He adds this means that if a patient’s tumor is not responding to treatment, 80% of ineffective doses and lost time can be avoided.
The funding will be used for ongoing studies and clinical trials.
Rna Diagnostics’ reference laboratory is headquartered at the Health Sciences North Research Institute in Sudbury and Dr. Parissenti continues to study the cellular mechanisms involved in RNA disruption with Drs. Carita Lanner and Tom Kovala of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine in the hopes of finding additional tools to predict or monitor chemotherapy response and outcome in cancer patients.
Laurentian University and Health Sciences North Research Institute also acknowledge the Clinical Trials Group of the Canadian Cancer Society and the Northern Cancer Foundation for supporting the discovery and further validation studies.
“Laurentian University is proud to offer its congratulations to Dr. Parissenti and Rna Diagnostics Inc. on this incredible milestone, the investment will provide critical funding to complete the clinical trials and bring to market a technology that will improve cancer treatments worldwide while impacting positively on the quality of life of cancer patients,” said Laurentian University’s Vice-President, Research Tammy Eger. “A true northern innovation created by outstanding partnerships and collaboration.”
“Our institution is thrilled to host RNA Diagnostic Inc.’s reference laboratory, which is collecting and analysing samples from around the world for the BREVITY Trial,” said Greg Ross, HSN and HSNRI’s Vice-President Academic and Research Impact. “Dr. Parissenti’s leadership in this strategic research is evident through his mentorship of learners in his lab and the positive exposure to meaningful research opportunities that will help patients in our Northern communities. RNA Diagnostics Inc. is truly putting Sudbury on the map.”
“The continued support of iGan Partners and our current investors, combined with the support of BDC Capital as a new investment partner, is exciting,” said John Connolly, President and CEO of Rna Diagnostics. “The closing of this series A financing will allow us to complete the pivotal validation trial (BREVITY) of the RNA Disruption Assay™ (RDA)™. BREVITY is currently recruiting patients at over 40 breast cancer centres in Europe and North America.”
“This is an enormous, expensive problem for cancer centres. Typically, in solid tumors, only 30-40% of patients receive a survival benefit from a given drug regimen,” adds Connolly. “Patients with nonresponsive tumours (identified by the RDA) can therefore forgo the ineffective treatment and its side-effects and moved quickly to alternate treatments”.