Toronto, Ont., Canada, Dec. 8, 2025 — A new study by scientists at the Institute of Cancer Research (Oslo University Hospital) and Rna Diagnostics, a clinical-stage molecular diagnostics company, supports the use of the RNA disruption assay (RDA) to predict tumour response to chemotherapy in early-stage breast cancer patients.
Led by Dr. Olav Engebråten at the University of Oslo, the research team conducted a retrospective study of 132 patients involved in the NeoAva clinical trial (NCT00773695).
Their paper, “High mid-treatment tumour RNA disruption in patients with HER2-negative breast cancer is associated with improved disease-free survival after neoadjuvant chemotherapy”, is published in the open access journal Breast Cancer Research.
The study found that high levels of tumour RNA disruption during neoadjuvant chemotherapy was associated with improved disease-free survival in patients with HER2-negative breast cancer using supervised analyses.
The researchers also found that high tumour RNA disruption, measured using the RDA, appeared to be a better predictor of treatment outcome than the post-treatment pathologic complete response (pCR) rate or residual cancer burden (RCB) index.
“There is an urgent need for new tools to identify patients who are unlikely to respond well to a particular chemotherapy treatment,” said John Connolly, CEO of Rna Diagnostics.
“While this study involved a relatively small cohort of patients, the results indicate, that if the same result could be obtained early during treatment, RDA may be particularly useful for response-guided neoadjuvant chemotherapy. This would allow clinicians to recommend, early on, alternate treatments that may help to achieve a better outcome.”
RDA, in development under the trade name Veridapt DX™, is a predictive biomarker test that evaluates tumour response to anti-cancer drugs by measuring the degree of ribosomal RNA disruption in tumour cells.
The test aims to allow clinicians to assess tumour response and adjust treatment accordingly, during neoadjuvant chemotherapy. The magnitude of RNA disruption is quantified by the RNA disruption index (RDI). A high RDI score indicates patients are responding to treatment, while a low RDI score predicts for treatment failure.
“The NeoAva clinical trial results add to the growing body of evidence that supports the value of our platform to predict outcome during neoadjuvant chemotherapy,” Connolly said.
Another recent study published in Cancers—Ribosomal RNA Degradation (RNA Disruption) in Tumour Cells: Mechanistic Insights and Potential Clinical Utility—provides insight into the mechanisms by which various cancer treatments can induce RNA disruption.
This review also proposes how outcome prediction by measuring the extent of tumour RNA disruption during treatment may be used to optimize the care of patients with breast cancer by providing evidence to support treatment escalation, de-escalation, or modification decisions.
RDA is currently being evaluated in Phase 2 of BREVITY (Breast Cancer Response Evaluation for Individualized Therapy), an international prospective trial involving cancer centres in seven countries.
Recruitment for BREVITY Phase 2 (validation phase) is over 90 per cent complete. The results of Phase 1 of BREVITY showed that the RDA could identify, with a high degree of certainty (Negative Predictive Value >93%), patients unlikely to benefit from a continuation of therapy. The Company expects readout of the BREVITY Phase 2 results in 2026.
About Rna Diagnostics
Rna Diagnostics is a clinical-stage molecular diagnostics company leading a paradigm shift in early-stage cancer care. Our predictive biomarker platform technology, Veridapt DX™, aims to enable physicians to optimize neoadjuvant cancer treatment to improve cancer care outcomes. Validation studies of Veridapt DX’s clinical utility are currently underway in Phase 2 of the BREVITY (Breast Cancer Response Evaluation for Individualized Therapy) international clinical trial in 55 cancer centers in North America and Europe. rnadiagnostics.com
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MEDIA CONTACT
For more information, please contact:
John Connolly
President and Chief Executive Officer
Rna Diagnostics Inc.
jconnolly@rnadiagnostics.com