Italian biotech Aptadir Therapeutics has launched with the promise that its pipeline of preclinical RNA inhibitors could crack intractable cancers. The Milan-based company was founded by RNA leaders Annalisa Di Ruscio, M.D., Ph.D., of Harvard Medical School's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Vittorio De Franciscis, Ph.D., of the Italian Research National Council alongside leukemia expert Daniel Tenen, M.D., of the Cancer Science Institute of Singapore and oligonucleotide-focused Marcin Kortylewski, Ph.D., of the City of Hope National Medical Center.

At the center of this joint venture is a new class of RNA inhibitors called DNMTs interacting RNAs (DiRs), which are able to block aberrant DNA methylation at a single gene level. The theory is that this reactivates previously hypermethylated genes, considered to be a key feature in cancers as well as genetic disorders.