Ovarian Cancer
The American Cancer Society estimates that approximately 22,000 women a year will be newly diagnosed with ovarian cancer and approximately 14,000 women will die from the disease in the U.S. each year.1
Ovarian cancers are commonly treated with chemotherapy regimens; however, nearly 75% of ovarian cancer patients who respond to initial treatment will relapse within 18 months. Chemo-resistant ovarian cancer has a median survival of 9–12 months and less than 15% respond to subsequent chemotherapy.2
Promising results from recent clinical trials show that PARP inhibitors benefit women with both treatment-resistant and newly diagnosed advanced ovarian cancer.3 Unfortunately, the emergence of resistance to PARP inhibitors is nearly ubiquitous in ovarian cancer, particularly following long-term treatment.4 In an effort to overcome treatment resistance, PARP inhibitors have been combined with other agents, but multi-drug combinations often have proven to be toxic thereby limiting their clinical utility.5
Rakovina Therapeutics Approach
We are screening our kt-2000 series PARP inhibitors against treatment-resistant ovarian cancer phenotypes to identify unique properties that may allow treatment of tumors that have become resistant to currently available therapies. Our kt-3000 and kt-4000 series drug candidates combine two important anti-tumor mechanisms in a single molecule potentially reducing the toxicity associated with multi-drug combinations.
1 American Cancer Society (2020)
2 Davis, Gynec Oncol (2014)
3 National Cancer Institutes (2019)
4 Li, Mol Cancer (2020)
5 Matulonis, Annals of Oncology (2017)