Ryvu Therapeutics to present data on the ONCO Prime Platform and announce PERO Grant agreement at AACR 2026
1 Apr 2026
Ryvu Therapeutics has announced that it will present preclinical data on the ONCO Prime platform at the 2026 AACR Annual Meeting held April 17–22, in San Diego, CA. The company has also announced a new grant agreement with the National Centre for Research and Development for the co-financing of its PERO project, which enhances Ryvu’s discovery engine by extending target identification capabilities into precise, rational drug design.
Colorectal cancer (CRC) remains a leading cause of cancer mortality, underscoring the need for new, mechanism-based therapeutic strategies. Using the ONCO Prime discovery and validation platform, based on genome-wide CRISPR/Cas9 screenings across clinically relevant models, Ryvu identified novel treatment options for genetically stratified CRC patients.
The ONCO Prime platform integrates healthy human intestinal stem cells (hISCs), isogenic CRC models carrying key driver mutations (APC, KRAS), and patient-derived primary cultures. All types of models can be genetically manipulated or used in the high-throughput setting for drug screening. Transcriptomic and machine learning analyses confirmed that these models faithfully recapitulate CRC molecular diversity and clinical behavior.
Systematic CRISPR/Cas9 loss-of-function screenings revealed multiple synthetic lethal (SL) interactions, uncovering target genes with first-in-class therapeutic potential. Additionally, using a clinical-grade drug that is FDA-approved in other indications, Ryvu achieved proof of concept in genetically stratified CRC models, demonstrating strong efficacy as monotherapy in vitro.
These data validate ONCO Prime’s translational capability to uncover clinically actionable vulnerabilities and deliver tangible therapeutic candidates.
This work provides a robust foundation for drug discovery programs and strategic partnerships built on ONCO Prime’s ability to bridge functional genomics with therapeutic development. Ryvu’s first proof of concept establishes ONCO Prime as a scalable platform to drive the next generation of precision, first-in-class oncology therapies.
Krzysztof Brzózka, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer of Ryvu Therapeutics, said, "We are excited to share new data that underscores the strength and translational potential of ONCO Prime. Our findings demonstrate that genome-wide functional genomics, combined with clinically relevant patient-derived models, can uncover actionable precision oncology targets, including synthetic lethal interactions, in genetically stratified colorectal cancer."
"Importantly, selected targets identified by Ryvu serve as the foundation for PERO, where we aim to define the critical structural domains required for target function and druggability. By integrating functional genomics with structural and pharmacological insights, we are building a seamless path from target discovery to rational small-molecule design,” he added.
PERO – Predictive engineering for rational oncology
Ryvu has concluded a grant agreement with the National Centre for Research and Development for the co-financing of the company’s project entitled 'PERO – Predictive Engineering for Rational Oncology: functional mapping of therapeutic targets in oncology.'
While ONCO Prime is designed to systematically identify novel, genetically defined therapeutic vulnerabilities using genome-wide CRISPR/Cas9 functional screenings across clinically relevant models, PERO represents a new step in drug discovery continuum by focusing on the functional validation and structural mapping of key protein domains within selected targets, with the goal of enabling rational development of small-molecule inhibitors.