Biomedical Catalyst Feasibility Award to Tackle Drug-resistant Ovarian Cancer
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MISSION Therapeutics has been granted a Biomedical Catalyst Feasibility Award by the Technology Strategy Board to support the identification of DUBs required for the survival of drug-resistant ovarian cancers.
Ovarian cancer is the fifth most common cancer in women and is responsible for more deaths per year than any other cancer of the female reproductive system.
Unfortunately, development of drug resistance remains the main limitation of current chemotherapies for ovarian cancer.
Identifying novel targets and therapies tailored for treating drug-resistant ovarian cancer is thus an area of clear unmet clinical need.
Using an innovative approach, MISSION will identify novel DUB targets by exploiting the very changes in tumours that led to the development of drug resistance.
Commenting on the announcement, Dr Niall Martin, MISSION Chief Operating Officer, said: “The decision of the Technology Strategy Board to support our work shows the potential the DUB space holds for treating cancer. The funds from this Feasibility Award will be used to screen all known DUBs to find those which are suitable targets for our drug development programmes.”
The project will see MISSION identify DUB targets whose inhibition selectively kills drug-resistant ovarian tumours or re-sensitizes them to chemotherapy.
The most promising targets will enter MISSION’s pipeline for further drug discovery efforts with a view to developing new therapeutic agents for ovarian cancer.