An early-stage biopharmaceutical company, Cequent is pioneering the development of novel therapeutics to prevent and treat a wide range of human diseases from inflammatory diseases to cancer based on the company`s proprietary technology, TransKingdom RNA interference (tkRNAi). Cequent`s first products, now in pre-clinical development, are drug candidates targeting colon-cancer prevention and inflammatory bowel disease.

The company designed its powerful tkRNAi technology to deactivate specific disease-causing genes safely and effectively, using non-pathogenic bacteria as an engine to produce and deliver RNAi directly into cells. It is based on ground-breaking scientific research originating at the Institut Pasteur (Paris, France) and at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School. A privately held company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cequent was established in 2006.

TransKingdom RNA-Interference (tkRNAi) is a platform technology that can be used to develop products for diverse, commercially valuable disease targets. Small molecules have limited capacity to block non-enzymatic cellular events and there are few drugable targets for monoclonal antibodies. In contrast, RNAi can potently and selectively silence any cellular gene or combination of genes, making it an ideal approach to influence the behavior of cells where the role of individual protein or proteins is known. One, or more than one, gene can be simultaneously silenced.