About Us
At AANASTRA we are harnessing the power of uniquely designed RNA along with the targeting capabilities of peptides to develop an entirely novel class of RNA-based therapeutic agents for the treatment of cancer and genetic diseases
AANASTRA (formerly AADIGEN) specializes in the development of in vivo targeted RNA therapeutics in the treatment of cancers and genetic diseases.
The company’s technology is based on proprietary RNA and proprietary peptides complexed together for targeted in vivo delivery of RNA.
Our versatile breakthrough technology tackles the major stumbling block in RNA therapeutics which continues to be the systemic in vivo targeting and cellular-release of RNA-based agents. Our approach provides an effective strategy for a wide range of clinical applications and pathologies.
The company was founded by Dr. Neil Desai (Abraxis, Celgene, Aadi Bioscience) and the technology and its use in the delivery of RNA therapeutics is based on the original research of Dr. Gilles Divita, who pioneered the cell penetrating peptide strategy for oligonucleotide delivery. Aanastra (Los Angeles, CA) works closely on its RNA therapeutics technology with its sister company Divincell SAS (Nimes, France).
Aanastra Inc is a start-up biopharmaceutical company focused on treating cancer using its novel RNA therapeutics strategy to target aberrant Tumor Suppressor Genes and Oncogenes. Aanastra’s technology has also been used to target other genetic diseases. The technology driving Aanastra’s approach is based on proprietary RNA combined with proprietary peptides that are able to target various tissues and tumors in vivo unlike commonly used strategies for RNA delivery including viral and lipid-based methods.
Aanastra’s strategy for aberrant Tumor Suppressor Rescue using proprietary mRNA and gene editing of mutated Oncogenes have shown remarkable antitumor effects in animal models of various cancers that have mutated P53, KRAS or BRCA1. The utility of Aanastra’s technology has also been demonstrated outside of cancer in animal models of hemophilia A to normalize Factor VIII levels and in cholesterol lowering applications by targeting PCSK9.