Dicerna Pharmaceuticals this week announced that partner Kyowa Hakko Kirin has decided to advance a second cancer drug candidate into formal development as part of the companies' ongoing alliance.
The move has triggered a $5 million milestone payment to Dicerna.
The firms began working together in 2010 as part of a deal that gave Kyowa access to Dicerna's Dicer-substrate RNAi technology against cancer targets (GSN 1/7/2010). In 2011, Kyowa chose to develop the first drug candidate worked on under the arrangement and began exploring a second (GSN 12/5/2011). The companies also expanded the partnership to include immunologic and inflammatory diseases.