Rna Diagnostics appoints Dr. Harry Bear to Clinical Advisory Board
Toronto, March 28, 2012 – MaRS client Rna Diagnostics Inc., a molecular diagnostics company developing tools to assist in the management of cancer chemotherapy, today announces that it has appointed Dr. Harry D. Bear to its Clinical Advisory Board.
The news follows on the heels of a recent round of significant fundraising for the company: $100,000 from the Ontario Genomics Institute’s Pre-Commercialization Business Development Fund (PBDF); and $925,000 from an investment syndicate comprising members of York Angel Investors, the Golden Triangle Angel Network, the Georgian Angel Network and the Niagara Angel Network.
The appointment and fundraising point to new momentum the company is seeing with its signature product, RNA Disruption Assay™ (RDA™), a novel test that helps cancer specialists rapidly assess whether chemotherapy is working effectively for individual patients, helping guide clinical decision-making early on in the treatment cycle.
“Rna Diagnostics is very pleased to have Dr. Bear join our Clinical Advisory Board. His commitment to improving treatments and outcomes for breast cancer patients will be especially valuable to Rna Diagnostics as we rapidly advance RDA™ towards clinical practice,” said Ken Pritzker, Chief Executive Officer of Rna Diagnostics.
Dr. Bear is the Walter Lawrence Jr. Distinguished Professor of Oncology and chairman of the Division of Surgical Oncology at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Massey Cancer Center. He is a board member of the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) Foundation, from which he also received the Distinguished Investigator Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009.
Over the past two decades, Dr. Bear, a researcher and surgeon, has led international trials that have resulted in major changes in the treatment of breast cancer and dramatically increased the chance for breast conservation among women with breast cancer.
“This new diagnostic tool has great potential to help oncologists treating breast cancer patients make earlier assessments about whether the treatment being used is going to be successful. If the test says ‘yes,’ the treatment would continue on course; but if the answer is ‘no,’ then a change in therapeutic approach (either different drugs or surgery) might be more appropriate,” said Dr. Bear.
Dr. Bear joins an international group of Rna Diagnostics Clinical Advisory Board members: Dr. Maureen Trudeau, MD, FRCPC, Head of Medical Oncology/Haematology, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, and Chair Rna Diagnostics Clinical Advisory Board; Dr. Gunter von Minckwitz, MD, PhD, Managing Director of the German Breast Group and member of the board of directors of Breast International Group; and Dr. Michael Untch, MD, PhD, Head of Clinic for Gynecology, Gynecologic Oncology and Obstetrics, and Head of the Interdisciplinary Breast Cancer Center at HELIOS Klinikum in Berlin-Buch, Germany.
About Rna Diagnostics Inc.
Rna Diagnostics Inc. is an Ontario, Canada-based private molecular diagnostics company that is commercializing cancer therapy guidance tools to improve clinical outcomes for cancer patients.
About MaRS
MaRS Discovery District (www.marsdd.com) (Twitter: @MaRSDD) is a mission-driven innovation centre located in Toronto. MaRS works with partners to catalyze, accelerate and amplify innovation. MaRS supports entrepreneurs building Canada’s next generation of growth companies.
For more information, contact:
Chris Stevenson
Director, Communications
(416) 673-8104
cstevenson@marsdd.com
John Connolly
Vice President, Corporate Development
Rna Diagnostics Inc.
(416)985-4361
jconnolly@rnadiagnostics.com