cancer-therapeutics
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Incyclix Bio Is Betting One Precise Brake Can Stop Cancer's Second Escape Route
A 13-person North Carolina biotech licensed an overlooked CDK2 program, narrowed the patient target and pushed one oral drug into the clinic. Early data offer a reason to keep going - and a useful blueprint for building around a precise scientific thesis rather than a sprawling pipeline.
PRUNUS Therapeutics Is Betting the Company on the Moment Cancer Lets Go
Most cancer drugs chase a mutation, receptor or pathway. This tiny Chicago biotech is chasing a moment - when a metastatic cell leaves home and reveals a weakness.
K36 Therapeutics, Inc.
K36 Therapeutics is a Cambridge, Massachusetts clinical-stage biotech developing first-in-class oral small-molecule inhibitors of NSD2/MMSET, an epigenetic enzyme that drives hard-to-treat cancers. Its lead candidate, gintemetostat (KTX-1001), is in Phase 1 for relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma carrying the t(4;14) translocation, and a second program, KTX-2001, targets metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. Backed by Atlas Venture, F-Prime Capital, Eight Roads Ventures, Nextech Invest and Bristol Myers Squibb, K36 has raised roughly $100M+ to translate chromatin biology into precision cancer medicines.
PAQ Therapeutics
PAQ Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biotechnology company in Burlington, Massachusetts developing a new class of small-molecule degraders that harness autophagy, the body's natural cellular recycling system, to destroy disease-causing proteins. Its proprietary ATTEC (autophagosome-tethering compound) platform aims to eliminate targets that traditional inhibitors cannot reach. The company's lead programs are KRAS degraders - PT0253, a selective KRAS G12D degrader, and PT0511, a pan-KRAS degrader - both in Phase 1 clinical trials for lung, colorectal and pancreatic cancers driven by KRAS mutations.
CytomX Therapeutics
CytomX Therapeutics is a clinical-stage, oncology-focused biopharmaceutical company in South San Francisco that engineers conditionally activated antibody therapeutics through its proprietary PROBODY platform. By masking a drug's binding site and unmasking it only in the tumor microenvironment - where specific proteases cut a cleavable linker - CytomX aims to hit cancer targets that are otherwise too toxic to drug, widening the therapeutic window for antibody-drug conjugates, T-cell engagers and cytokines. Its wholly owned pipeline is led by CX-2051, an EpCAM-targeting PROBODY ADC for metastatic colorectal cancer, alongside masked interferon CX-801 and T-cell engager CX-904, and it partners its technology with Amgen, Astellas, Bristol Myers Squibb, Moderna and Regeneron.
AmMax Bio., Inc.
AmMax Bio is a clinical-stage biotechnology company in Redwood City, California, developing first-in-class cancer therapeutics built on a CSF1R-targeting antibody platform. Founded in 2020 by pharmaceutical veteran Larry Hsu, PhD, in partnership with Amgen, the company advances a pipeline that spans a monoclonal antibody for tenosynovial giant cell tumor (TGCT), a therapy for colorectal cancer minimal residual disease (in partnership with MD Anderson), and a lead antibody-drug conjugate, AMB-104, for acute myeloid leukemia. AmMax's strategy is to de-risk development by combining clinically validated antibodies with established linker-payload technology.
Auransa
Auransa is a clinical-stage, AI-native biopharmaceutical company in Palo Alto, California, that uses a proprietary machine-learning platform - the SMarTR Engine - to mine large, heterogeneous human disease datasets and discover novel cancer therapies without starting from a predefined drug target. Founded in 2014 by Pek Lum and Viwat Visuthikraisee, the company pairs each predicted compound with the patient subtypes most likely to respond, aiming to improve the odds of clinical success. Its lead program, AU-409, an RNA transcription modulator for advanced liver cancer, is in Phase 1 trials, with additional programs including heart-safe chemotherapy.
MBrace Therapeutics
MBrace Therapeutics is a clinical-stage oncology company building antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) against hard-to-drug cancer targets. Its proprietary SPARTA platform screens antibodies directly inside living tumors to surface antigens that are cancer-specific, accessible, and internalizing - the traits an ADC needs to deliver its toxic payload where it counts. Founded in 2020 and headquartered in San Diego, the company raised an $85M Series B in 2023 (led by TPG) to advance a pipeline led by MBRC-101, a first-in-class ADC targeting the EphA5 receptor now in Phase 1/2 clinical trials.
Vivace Therapeutics, Inc.
Vivace Therapeutics is a San Mateo, California oncology company turning novel Hippo-YAP pathway biology into first-in-class cancer drugs. Its lead small molecule, VT3989, is a first-in-class YAP/TEAD inhibitor that blocks TEAD auto-palmitoylation and has shown durable responses in treatment-resistant mesothelioma and NF2-mutant tumors. Built on a capital-efficient US-China 'virtual biotech' model, the company has raised roughly $105 million across four rounds and is preparing a registrational Phase 3 trial.
Talus Bio
Talus Bio is a Seattle drug-discovery company going after transcription factors and other regulatory proteins long written off as 'undruggable.' Its MARMOT platform measures the human regulome directly in living cells using functional proteomics and high-throughput mass spectrometry, then feeds tens of millions of compound-target interactions into a lab-in-the-loop AI system to design small molecules that switch disease-driving genes on or off. Founded in 2020 by Alex Federation and Lindsay Pino, the company runs preclinical programs in chordoma, non-small cell lung cancer, and prostate cancer.
Avelos Therapeutics
Avelos Therapeutics is a Seoul-based clinical-stage oncology biotech founded in 2021 that designs small-molecule drugs for 'undruggable' cancer targets using synthetic lethality, DNA damage response (DDR), and cell-cycle biology. Its lead program, AD1208, is a first-in-class oral MASTL kinase inhibitor now in a Phase 1/2a solid-tumor trial. Backed by KRW 30 billion (~$21.7M) across seed, Series A, and a 2024 Series B, the roughly nine-person team is building a biomarker-driven pipeline of four anti-cancer candidates aimed at a future KOSDAQ listing.
MOMA Therapeutics
MOMA Therapeutics is a Cambridge, Massachusetts biotech building precision small-molecule medicines against 'molecular machines' - the highly dynamic, shape-shifting enzymes (ATPases, GTPases and related proteins) that power cellular processes and underlie cancer and other diseases. Spun out of Third Rock Ventures in 2020 by four academic leaders in protein biophysics and structural biology, MOMA's proprietary KNOMATIC platform fuses deep structural insight, advanced hit-finding (fragment and DNA-encoded library screening) and machine-learning-driven lead optimization to drug targets long considered intractable. The company has raised about $236M, advanced its first oncology program into the clinic, and partnered with Roche and Bayer.
Nested Therapeutics
Nested Therapeutics is a Cambridge, Massachusetts clinical-stage biotech building small-molecule precision oncology drugs that go after cancer driver mutations long written off as undruggable. Founded in 2021 and launched publicly in 2022 with $125M, the company pairs structural biology, computational biophysics and chemistry to find hidden, druggable pockets in cancer's most stubborn targets. Its lead program, NST-628, is a brain-penetrant pan-RAF/MEK molecular glue for RAS/MAPK-driven solid tumors, now in Phase 1 with early clinical activity reported at AACR 2026.
STORM Therapeutics
STORM Therapeutics is a Cambridge, UK biotechnology company pioneering the field of RNA epigenetics. It designs small-molecule inhibitors of RNA-modifying enzymes to treat cancer and other diseases. Its lead drug, STC-15, is the first RNA-modifying enzyme inhibitor to reach human clinical trials, now in a Phase 2 study for sarcoma.