The province is expected to receive $1 million in new cancer research funding with a new agreement it has signed with a Japanese pharmaceutical firm.
The B.C. Cancer Agency and the Vancouver Prostate Centre will work with Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. on new drug treatments for breast, ovarian and prostate cancers, some of the most common cancers affecting Canadians.
Takeda is interested in the B.C. Cancer Agency’s unique collections of tissue samples from patients with breast, ovarian and prostate cancers. B.C. researchers have already sequenced dozens of archived tumour genomes and identified gene mutations that may affect how the cancers develop.
Researchers in both countries will look for patterns in B.C. Cancer Agency data to help identify key mutations that lead to tumour formation and can then be targeted by new therapeutic drugs.
The Vancouver Prostate Centre will focus on mutations in prostate cancer that have become resistant to conventional therapies.