Sitka Biopharma, Vancouver, has received a "significant" but unspecified seed investment from Quark Venture to advance its lead compound for treating bladder cancer into clinical trials. Sitka was spun out in 2013 from the Univ of British Columbia and the Centre for Drug Research and Development. CDRD assisted the firm in developing its nanoparticle platform technology for increasing the absorption of drugs in difficult-to-penetrate tissues, de-risking and adding value with studies to support preclinical proof-of-concept and lead candidate selection. It also helped to file patents and secure initial grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Genome British Columbia....