Oncoheroes Biosciences and VHIR to Partner for the Discovery and Development of Novel Therapies for Childhood Sarcomas

Vall d’Hebron Research Institute (VHIR)and Oncoheroes Biosciences, a biotechcompany exclusively focused on advancing new therapies for children withcancer, announced they have entered a partnership to collaborate in thediscovery and development of innovative therapies for pediatric sarcomas.

OncoheroesBiosciences Discovery Lab, located at Barcelona Science Park and led by Dr. EvaMendez, focuses on discovering and developing novel oncology drugs for thosepediatric cancers with the highest unmet needs.“Pediatric sarcoma patients have not seen anysignificant improvement in treatment options in decades. We are excited toinitiate this collaboration with Dr. Josep Roma, a recognized expert in thistype of childhood cancer,”stated Dr. Eva Mendez,Oncoheroes’ Chief Discovery Officer. “We stronglybelieve that academic-industry collaborations are key to discover the newgeneration of drugs for childhood sarcomas.”

Dr.Roma is leading the Sarcoma Laboratory in the Childhood Cancer and BloodDisorders research group at VHIR. Oncoheroes and VHIR’s collaboration willfocus on the Hedgehog pathway, where recent studies led by Dr. Roma haveidentified novel targets for pediatric sarcomas with high therapeuticpotential, not disclosed yet. The academic group has demonstrated that theinhibition of some specific targets results in killing selectively cancerouscells in both in vitro and in vivo models. Oncoheroes willrationally design new inhibitors and conduct high throughput screeningcampaigns for identifying new active compounds that will be later optimized incollaboration with Dr. Roma.

“Theoncogenic mechanisms that we will evaluate in this collaboration are notexclusive to a single tumor type but are activated in a wide spectrum ofsarcomas and other cancers,”added Dr.Josep Roma, VHIR’s researcher. “By combining the academic know-how generated at our research group, andthe drug development and pediatric expertise from Oncoheroes’ team, we areconfident we can accelerate the development of new targeted therapies for thisunderserved pediatric population”.