The Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO), the University of Barcelona (UB) and the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA) joined forces to work on a new project: Oniria Therapeutics. This biopharmaceutical company under preclinical phase aims to develop innovative drugs in the field of precision oncology. In particular, the new spin-off, which counted on the financial aid of "la Caixa" Foundation, the Spanish Association against Cancer and the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII) will focus the effort on the development of therapies to remove persistent cancer cells that are resisting the conventional treatments and which are responsible for the patients' relapses and their progression towards more advanced stages of the illness.
Among the several projects under development, the most advanced drug is a first-in-class one that acts by modulating the function of the epigenetic factor TET2. This factor drives the global activity of the genome by regulating its methylation profile and forces the cancer cell to "fall asleep" without losing the future malignant potential.
