DURHAM — Durham-based GeneCentric Therapeutics Inc. announced Monday that it has acquired a license to technology that could help fight pancreatic cancer.
The license is for subtyping Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma and comes from UNC-Chapel Hill.
Financial terms were not disclosed, but the company plans to use the technology to help with treating PDAC by identifying responder populations to emerging therapeutics in collaboration with pharmaceutical partners, UNC-Chapel Hill and other researchers.
GeneCentric
“Pancreatic cancer is among the most lethal tumor types. The subtyping platform has significant potential to guide the development and eventual clinical use of promising therapeutic agents in this disease,” CEO Myla Lai-Goldman said in a statement.
The licensed technology is called Purity Independent Subtyping of Tumors (PurIST).
The technology is based on a set of patient-cell derived gene signatures for classifying four pancreatic subtypes. It was developed in the laboratory of Jen Jen Yeh, who is professor of surgery and pharmacology and vice chair for research in the department of surgery at the UNC-CH School of Medicine and the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.
PDAC may only represent 3 percent of all cancers, but it accounts for 7 percent of all cancer deaths. The five-year survival rate is 8.5 percent.
Before starting GeneCentric. Lai-Goldman spent more than 18 years at Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings, the last 10 years as executive vice president, chief medical officer and chief scientific officer.
She served on LabCorp’s executive and management committees, with strategic and operations responsibilities for three major genomic laboratories comprising more than 700 people. During her tenure at the company, she led all clinical, scientific and medical activities, including the introduction of more than 400 clinical assays.
This story is from the North Carolina Business News Wire, a service of UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Media and Journalism
