NeuroVive Pharmaceutical and Ramin Massoumi at Lund University have been granted 2,5 MSEK from the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SFF) for an Industrial PhD to study the role of cyclophilins in liver cancer.

The research will be done within NeuroVive’s project NVP024, which is focused on the development of a novel liver cancer treatment.

The overall objective of the research is to develop new therapeutic options for liver cancer by combining the cancer biology expertise at the Molecular Tumor Pathology, Division of Translational Cancer Research at LundUniversity and NeuroVive’s innovative drug discovery and development expertise. The doctoral student will be employed by NeuroVive and carry out the research while pursuing graduate studies at Lund University.

“Receiving this grant together with a leading research group at Lund University is very exciting and a seal of quality on our research. Together with Ramin Massoumi and his research group, we will now seek to develop a treatment which has high tolerability as a standalone treatment but which is also suitable for combination drug therapy. Our goal is to increase the efficacy of liver cancer treatment and to counteract drug resistance by targeting several different mechanisms”, commented Magnus Hansson, Chief Medical Officer, NeuroVive Pharmaceutical.

The research is expected to discover previously uncharacterized roles of cyclophilins in Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC) to establish a new therapeutic strategy, and to explore potential synergistic combination treatments with minimal toxicity.

“Our joint research with NeuroVive will explore a specific mode of action behind the potent cytostatic effect of the cyclophilin inhibitors, their therapeutic potential in vivo, confirm the relevance of pathways in patient tissue samples, and explore synergistic combination therapies in HCC. This project will add to the cutting-edge cancer research already being carried out at Lund University”, said Ramin Massoumi, Associate Professor and Head of Molecular Tumor Pathology at Lund University.

Photo: Nina Ransmyr