Breast Cancer & TNBC
Breast cancer will be diagnosed in 12% of women in the United States over the course of their lifetimes. More than 250,000 new cases of breast cancer were diagnosed in the United States in 2019.1
Breast cancer is categorized into three major subtypes based on (1) the presence or absence of molecular biomarkers for estrogen or progesterone receptors and human epidermal growth factor-2 (ERBB2; formerly HER2); (2) hormone receptor positive/ERBB2 negative (70% of patients), ERBB2 positive (15%-20%); and (3) triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) tumors that lack all three standard molecular markers (15% of patients).2
Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is an aggressive cancer because it grows quickly, is likely to have spread at the time of diagnosis and is more likely to recur after treatment than other types of breast cancer. The outlook is generally very unfavorable in comparison to the other types of breast cancer.
Nearly half (46%) of women with advanced TNBC will have metastasis to the central nervous system (CNS) or brain.3 These patients have a particularly poor prognosis with median survival of only 4.9 months.4
Rakovina Therapeutics Approach
Analysis of patient data indicates that 20-25% of TNBC patients harbor germline DDR-mutations making this a promising patient population for PARP-inhibitor therapy.5 The high incidence of CNS metastases represents an important unmet medical need.
We are seeking to optimize our kt-2000 series PARP inhibitors to treat DDR-mutant cancers with high risk of CNS metastasis. We are researching our kt-3000 and kt-4000 series drug candidates to target recurrent and treatment-resistant cancers, including TNBC.
1 American Cancer Society (2020)
2 Waks, JAMA (2019)
3 Lin, Cancer (2008)
4 Niikuru, Breast Cancer Res Treat (2014); Lin, Cancer (2008)
5 Papadimitriou, Cancer Treat Rev (2018)