NEW YORK – Precision oncology startup Cedilla Therapeutics on Thursday unveiled its two lead drug programs, a TEAD inhibitor for the treatment of solid tumors and a CDK2 inhibitor to treat CDK4/6-resistant tumors.
Both programs are in preclinical studies, but the company hopes to start investigational new drug application-enabling studies next year.
Cedilla has a TEAD inhibitor program, in which it is exploring therapies against solid tumors, including mesothelioma and certain squamous cell carcinomas. TEAD has also been associated with resistance to target therapies used to treat EGFR-mutated and KRAS-mutated lung cancer. Cedilla will begin IND-enabling studies of the TEAD program in the first half of 2022.
The CDK2 candidate is being studied in multiple tumor types, including CDK4/6-resistant breast, ovarian, uterine, stomach, and esophageal cancers. This CDK2 program targets the CDK2-Cyclin E cancer node. High levels of Cyclin E have been found in about half of breast cancer patients with resistance to CDK4/6 inhibitors and in genetically defined subsets of ovarian, uterine, stomach, and esophageal cancers. The company expects to begin IND-enabling studies of this program in the second half of 2022.
"Based on preclinical data, I believe our TEAD and CDK2 programs have clear advantages relative to historical approaches, offering the opportunity for preferential clinical utility, in terms of targeted efficacy or combinability with other therapeutic mechanisms," Cedilla CSO Brian Jones said in a statement.
Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Cedilla was founded in 2018. The company has raised about $113 million in two rounds of funding since its launch.