Booming Dicerna Takes a Larger Space in Cambridge and Plans to Hire

February 26, 2015
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. --- With planned expansion in mind, Dicerna Pharmaceuticals, Inc. , which uses RNA1 science to develop cancer treatments, is moving into a 37,000 square-foot facility that will include office space and research and development space in Cambridge, Mass.

The company will relocate its operations from its current location in neighboring Watertown. The move will open space for the company’s planned expansions, Douglas Fambrough, Dicerna CEO said in a press release. With the new space Dicerna has more than doubled its footprint. The company currently employs approximately 45 people, but plans to hire an additional 10 employees this year, and more in the future.

Dicerna, which was founded in 2007, began 2014 with a successful public offering of its stock that raised $103 million. Dicerna’s RNA Interference, RNAi, is aimed at overcoming key limitations of drugs addressing small molecules and antibodies by attacking targets such as transcription factors that are expressed exclusively inside cells.

In 2014 the company also initiated two Phase 1 clinical trials for its DCR-MYC program in oncology. DCR-MYC, the company’s first drug candidate to enter clinical testing, is a “Dicer Substrate siRNA (DsiRNA) that targets the driver oncogene MYC, which is central to the growth of many hematologic and solid tumor malignancies,” according to a company report.

The Phase I study will assess DCR-MYC for safety and tolerability in patients with solid tumors, multiple myeloma, or lymphoma who have been unresponsive to other therapies. Dicerna has developed EnCore lipid nanoparticles, a proprietary system for the delivery of DsiRNAs to the liver and to solid tumors. HCC is one of the most prevalent cancers, yet, currently there is only one FDA approved therapy for HCC, the company said.

Earlier this month Dicerna announced the first patient was dosed in a global Phase Ib/2 clinical trial of DCR-MYC focused on advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), a form of liver cancer. The study will include about 72 patients diagnosed with HCC.

This year Dicerna plans to start clinical development of a second innovative medicine, DCR-PH1, which has the potential to be a functional cure for the serious and difficult-to-treat genetic disease primary hyperoxaluria type 1 (PH1). In November the company reported successful treatment of mice that were genetically engineered to carry the same metabolic defect found in PH1 patients.

Dicerna’s relocation adds to Cambridge’s growing importance in the biotech sector, which is currently home to companies like Biogen Idec , Bayer AG , Novartis AG , Pfizer Inc. , Sanofi-Aventis, Ra Pharmaceuticals and more.

In its last quarterly report Dicerna had research and development expenses of $7.5 million for the third quarter of 2014 compared to $2.4 million for the same period in 2013, which was primarily due to the initiation of the DCR-MYC clinical trial and an increase in research activities related to DCR-PH1.

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BioSpace Temperature Poll
Analyst Mark Schoenebaum, a biotech and pharmaceuticals analyst and medical doctor for ISI Group Evercore, has been running a Best Hair in Biopharma contest for several months now. So far, the candidates are Bristol-Myers Squibb Company's John Elicker, Receptos’ Chief Executive Officer Faheem Hasnain, Celgene's Vice President of Investor Relations Patrick Flanigan and Acorda Therapeutics' Ron Cohen.

We want to know what our BioSpace community thinks: Who do you believe actually has the Best Hair in BioPharma?