04:30 PM EDT, 04/09/2024 (MT Newswires) -- Rakovina Therapeutics ( RKVTF ) , a biopharmaceutical company developing novel DNA-damage response inhibitor therapeutics, said Tuesday that members of the company's scientific team presented new data on the company's novel kt-3000 series at the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting in San Diego.

In the presentation entitled, "Pharmacological Synthetic Lethality by Co-Inhibition of PARP and HDAC Enzymes" during yesterday's Late Breaking Experimental and Molecular Therapeutics Research session at the conference, Rakovina discussed conceptual insights on how co-inhibition of these enzymes can eliminate cancer cells with an intact DNA repair machinery.

"We are very proud of our continued progress in our quest to find new treatments for cancer," said Rakovina executive chair Jeffrey Bacha, in a statement. "The research was led by our President and Chief Science Officer Dr. Mads Daugaard, and we continue to be highly encouraged about the direction of our pre-clinical research."

"The combination of PARP and HDAC inhibition activity in one single drug candidate showed strong anti-tumor cell activity in DNA repair-proficient cells where single agent PARP inhibitors have limited effects," said Daugaard in a statement. "Our research continues to support the idea that the development of bifunctional PARP-HDAC inhibitors may provide a novel therapeutic opportunity for tumors with resistance to first-generation PARP inhibitors."

According to Bacha, first-generation PARP inhibitors have become an important standard-of-care in the treatment of several major solid tumors, including subsets of breast, lung and prostate cancers, generating nearly US$3 billion in annual revenue. Resistance to PARP inhibitors develops over time so continued innovation is needed to meet the need for new and better treatments.

Collaborators on this project include the Vancouver Prostate Centre, Vancouver, B.C.; Rakovina Therapeutics ( RKVTF ), Vancouver; the Department of Urologic Sciences, the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and the Department of Urologic Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver.

Rakovina shares closed up C$0.005 to C$0.09 on the TSX Venture Exchange.