Singapore: Molecular Targeting Technologies, (MTTI) announced that it had inked a deal with Taiwan's National Health Research Institutes (NHRI) to develop new cancer therapeutics, using the company's proprietary DPA delivery technology.

NHRI is an autonomous research organization under the supervision and support of Taiwan's Department of Health. Cancer is among priority areas for the institute, with two research units devoted to the disease.

MTTI said that using the DPA technology anti-cancer drugs can be specifically delivered to the target sites. The company further added that the pre-clinical trials for xenograft models were successful using the DPA system.

MTTI said that, DPA technology is based on an unexpected discovery that certain dipicolyamine derivatives are effective in delivering a therapeutic agent to target disease sites that have phosphatidylserine exposed on the external surfaces of the cell membranes.

Mr Chris Pak, MTTI's president and CEO said, "There are distinct advantages of this novel class of DPA-drug conjugates compared to conventional therapeutic agents in the colon cancer model."

MTTI focusses on developing cancer solutions, and novel platforms for efficient drug delivery. The company's lead product candidate is an SMDC, containing the potent anti-cancer agent SN-38, a topoisomerase I inhibitor, with an MTTI-developed linker group, that is known to be most effective against cancers.