Targeting Long Non-Coding RNAs for Next Generation Cancer Therapies
Dr Sarah Diermeier (Senior Lecturer and Rutherford Discovery Fellow in the University of Otago Biochemistry Department), whose drive to help find a cure for cancer was driven by her first experience with cancer when, as a 12-year-old, she watched her godmother die from the disease.
Treatment was “unbelievably cruel” and often did not help, she said.
She wanted to change this and so began her journey to make treatments that helped survival and also significantly improved patients’ wellbeing, rather than making them so sick.
German-born, Dr Diermeier trained in cancer biology and drug development in the United States before heading to Otago.
Dr Diermeier won the Translational Research Grant in the end of 2019 with her concept of targeting long non-coding (lnc) RNA with antisense oligomers (ASOs) as a therapy for triple negative breast cancer (TNBC). In March 2020, she presented a project preview to the Return on Science Biotech & Pharma Investment Committee, as is often practice for new prospective projects that Otago Innovation works with. This presentation was a starting point for Brandon Capital to work with Otago Innovation to explore the lncRNA project as a potential investment opportunity. The initial Business Case was presented to Brandon BioCatalyst (then named MRCF; of which Otago Innovation is a member) in June 2020 and a more detailed Investment Approval Form was presented by Sarah and her Commercialisation Manager Alex Tickle in August 2020.
In December 2020, Sarah and Alex obtained business case approval from Return on Science allowing Otago Innovation to invest more into the development of the project. This investment supported target validation and ASO development in Sarah’s lab until Amaroq Therapeutics (registered by Otago Innovation in January 2021) was capitalised in June 2021 with an investment commitment of $14 million from Brandon Capital (including a repayable Callaghan grant), NZ Innovation Booster and CureKids Ventures.
All going well, Dr Diermeier hopes the first clinical trials could begin in 2025. Currently there are two programmes, one for bowel cancer and the other for a very aggressive form of breast cancer. Brain cancer is next in the pipeline.
She hopes to run those trials in New Zealand – all the research so far has been in New Zealand and financially supported by New Zealand and Australian funders.
It would be an opportunity to “give back” to the community so New Zealand patients had the first access in the world to new drugs.
Since June 2021, Dr Sarah Diermeier has been the Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) and Founder of Amaroq Therapeutics in addition to being a senior lecturer at the University of Otago.