Dicerna Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced that Kyowa Hakko Kirin Co. Ltd. (KHK) has elected to advance the second therapeutic oncology candidate from the research to development stage. The achievement of this milestone triggers a $5 million payment from KHK to Dicerna.

Dicerna has a research collaboration and license agreement with KHK worth up to $1.4 billion for the research, development and commercialization of Dicer substrate siRNA (DsiRNA) pharmaceuticals and drug delivery systems for gene targets with therapeutic potential in oncology. In 2011, Dicerna announced that KHK had moved its first oncology candidate under the collaboration into development and also nominated a second oncology target. The milestone announced is in regard to this second oncology target.

DsiRNA delivered by KHK's drug delivery system to the target has yielded compelling activity in animal models of difficult-to-treat tumors.