Synthetic Lethality Explained: Targeting Cancer’s DNA Repair Weaknesses

I'd like to ask you, Oren, about that transition from academia, being a scientist, to now in the last few years becoming CEO of Apria Therapeutics.

I mean, what was the hardest part of that transition for you?

I'm going to say that it's not the hardest part.

It's the preparation from the science into the business.

Because as a scientist, you are a problem solver.

And you have to be comfortable with the unknown.

So it's all about data analytics and data interpretation, come up with a hypothesis and the next step.

So it's not that it's hard, it's different.

But the scientific background definitely provides the foundation that hopefully will help me in my position with a prayer.

I've been in the industry for a while, and I know that the targeted therapies, I mean, there was such promise of being able to target molecular alterations and this rise of precision oncology and medicine.

I mean, you're right at the heart of it here, but it's a crowded space, right? I mean, pharma has been pursuing these types of therapies for quite a while.

So what is it about Aprea that you think makes you different, unique? It's an

exciting space, Chris.

It's not crowded.

It's an exciting space.

And I'll give you some examples because it's a concept, right? It's a concept that matching the drugs with the disease.

So one example that we're seeing is that PARP inhibitor and AstraZeneca have Olaparib that is being treated patients with BRCA, BRCA loss of function.

So that's already, it started with the fourth line and went up.

Now it's become the standard of care.

So that concept is not just clinically validated, it's also commercially validated.

There's another example that I'm going to use because it's up in the news recently, and this is with RAS.

Revolution Medicine, they have RAS, a drug for RAS mutation.

When Tango used their PRMT5 inhibitor, For mTaP deletion, combining with the RASMID drug for Revolution Medicine, they got a very, very strong response, over 90% responders.

So the concept is very exciting.

And what do we have? We have, and we have a slogan, multiple targets in one critical pathway.