Our Story
CV6 Therapeutics began with a scientific question Dr. Robert Ladner has pursued throughout his career. What happens when the systems protecting DNA from uracil are disrupted, and can that vulnerability be therapeutically exploited?
His early research helped characterize human dUTPase and later showed how dUTPase and uracil-DNA metabolism shape resistance to 5-fluorouracil (5-FU). That work pointed to a new way to treat disease. Drive enough uracil into the DNA of diseased cells and they come under Genomic Uracil Stress. CV6 is building a new class of investigational medicines around the cell’s response, the Genomic Uracil Stress Response (GUSR).
The Question That Started It
Early in his career, Dr. Ladner focused on a question others largely overlooked: how the mismanagement of uracil in DNA shapes the activity of 5-FU, one of the most widely used cancer therapies, and how that biology drives treatment resistance.
A Different Path in Oncology
While much of the field moved toward entirely new drug classes, his work remained anchored in a different belief: that the vulnerabilities created by therapies already used worldwide could themselves be exploited.
Building the GUSR Platform
That long-term commitment became the CV6 approach: selectively targeting dUTPase to induce Genomic Uracil Stress. In cancer, CV6-168 forces uracil into the DNA of cells already under thymidylate stress from 5-FU and related therapies, driving lethal genomic damage. The same biology underpins CV6-1271, which is being developed alongside methotrexate in inflammatory disease.
From Hypothesis to Clinic
Today, CV6-168 is in a Phase 1a trial across Northern Ireland and Great Britain. Twenty patients have been treated across seven completed dose cohorts with no dose-limiting toxicities, and pharmacodynamic data are consistent with the intended mechanism. CV6-1271 is advancing toward clinical development.
Meet Dr. Robert Ladner
“I like to fish where no one else is fishing.”
That mindset has defined Dr. Ladner’s career, from the University of Southern California laboratory once occupied by Charles Heidelberger, who developed 5-FU, to building CV6 in Belfast.
This conversation goes beyond the science, exploring the path behind the work, why it ultimately led to building a company in Northern Ireland, and some of the unexpected influences along the way.
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