Day One Biopharma in-licenses VRK1 from Sprint Bioscience

17 August 2023

US clinical stage biotech Day One Biopharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: DAWN) has entered into an exclusive, global license agreement and research collaboration with Sweden’s Sprint Bioscience (STO: SPRINT) for rights to the latter’s VRK1 program.

Sprint’s shares sky rocketed to as much as 1.81 kronor yesterday, after opening the day at 0.47 kronor. The stock eased off 23% to 1.38 kronor this morning.

Vaccinia-related kinase 1 (VRK1) is a novel target involved in the regulation of cell division and DNA damage repair. Over-expression of VRK1 is linked to poor prognosis in a variety of adult and pediatric cancers, and VRK1 has been identified as a synthetic lethal target in tumors where expression of its paralog, VRK2, is lost. Silencing of VRK2 expression via promoter methylation has been noted in the majority of high-grade gliomas and high-risk neuroblastomas, providing a concrete approach for selecting patients with tumors sensitive to VRK1 inhibition.

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