Presage Biosciences, an oncology company pioneering a radical new drug development approach that incorporates human efficacy data much earlier in development and clinical trials, announced today that it has in-licensed voruciclib, its first clinical stage drug program. Voruciclib is an oral CDK inhibitor that has been in clinical development for cancer indications and will be developed in combination with other standard of care agents.
"Using our CIVO platform, we have been able to rapidly identify and understand the biology of voruciclib combinations that hold potential for further clinical development," said Nathan Caffo, President of Presage. "CIVO clearly distinguished voruciclib from other CDK inhibitors in ways that were unexpected."
Voruciclib was previously being developed by Piramal Enterprises Limited, one of India's large diversified companies, with a presence in Healthcare, Healthcare Information Management and Financial Services.
"Presage is taking advantage of our unique capabilities to discover and validate effective cancer drug combinations as we develop voruciclib in the clinic," said Richard Klinghoffer, PhD., Chief Scientific Officer of Presage. "Combating drug resistance in cancer requires that clinicians identify the right combinations of drugs for patients at the outset of treatment. We expect that the CIVO platform can play a key role in informing this new approach to cancer drug development."
Presage has developed CIVO™, a predictive in vivo assessment technology for drug development that enables the first side-by-side comparison of multiple drugs and combinations within a single living tumor while still in a patient's body, without exposing the patient to the toxicity of systemic dosing. Presage is actively in-licensing promising compounds and using CIVO™ to develop a portfolio of proprietary oncology therapies.
CIVO™ was shown to accurately predict systemic response to oncology drugs in multiple experiments in human xenografted mouse models. Additional results in canine patients and a first-in-human study in lymphoma patients are summarized in a study published in the May 2015 issue of Science Translational Medicine by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Presage Biosciences.
About Presage Biosciences
Presage Biosciences is an oncology company pioneering the incorporation of human efficacy data much earlier in the drug development and clinical trial processes with its patented CIVO™ arrayed microinjection platform. The CIVO platform allows for simultaneous assessment of multiple drugs or drug combinations directly in a single solid tumor while still in a patient's body to assess efficacy, resistance and drug synergies in the tumor's native microenvironment. Presage partners with oncology-focused pharmaceutical companies through strategic alliances to provide in vivo data to validate novel targets, promote drug candidates to the right indications and discover effective drug combinations. Presage also is using CIVO™ to develop a portfolio of promising oncology therapies to advance to the clinic. Presage is privately held and based in Seattle.
