Drug discovery and development company Trethera received a USD 2 million Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) grant from the National Cancer Institute. This brings the total funds raised to USD 11 million.

The grant will be used to conduct further biomarker evaluations to inform patient selection and dosing strategies for multiple types of difficult-to-treat cancers.

Trethera, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, focuses on developing novel drugs that target nucleotide metabolism for the treatment of cancer and autoimmune diseases. Its lead asset, TRE-515, is an orally delivered therapeutic designed to inhibit deoxycytidine kinase, an enzyme involved in the nucleoside salvage pathway (helps to recycle and reuse certain building blocks found in the DNA and RNA)​. Trethera aims to inhibit rapid cell proliferation in tumor cells and aberrant activated lymphocytes (a type of immune cell in our body that has become abnormal and overactive), potentially offering a new therapeutic approach for cancer and autoimmune diseases.