Curis Announces Expansion Of Pipeline With Addition Of Two Programs

(RTTNews) - Curis Inc. (CRIS) announced the expansion of its pipeline with the addition of two programs, the first of which is an oral, small molecule immune checkpoint antagonist targeting programmed death ligand-1 or PD-L1 and V-domain Ig suppressor of T cell activation or VISTA, and the second is focused on inhibitors of Interleukin-1 receptor-associated kinase 4 or IRAK4.

The additions to the pipeline come through the Company's exercise of its options under a collaboration agreement with Aurigene announced earlier this year. In the area of immuno-oncology, Curis exercised its option to exclusively license a first-in-class oral, small molecule antagonist designated as CA-170 that targets PD-L1 and VISTA, which function as negative checkpoint regulators of immune activation. CA-170 was selected from the broad PD-L1 antagonist program that the companies have been engaged in since the collaboration was established in January 2015.

Curis also exercised its option to exclusively license a program of orally available small molecule inhibitors of IRAK4 kinase. IRAK4 is a serine/ threonine kinase involved in the regulation of innate immune responses and also plays an important role in certain hematologic cancers.

IRAK4 is inappropriately activated, and drives pro-survival and cytokine mediated pathways in cancers such as activated B cell-diffuse large B cell lymphoma (ABC-DLBCL), an aggressive form of lymphoma with poor prognosis. Targeting IRAK4 has potential therapeutic implications in both cancer and cytokine-driven inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.

The exercise of options for the PD-L1/VISTA and IRAK4 programs resulted in an aggregate one-time payment of $6 million by Curis to Aurigene in exchange for an exclusive, royalty-bearing license to develop, manufacture and commercialize compounds from the programs, including the development candidate, CA-170 and products containing such compounds, anywhere in the world with the exception of India and Russia, where Aurigene will hold an exclusive, royalty-free, fully paid license to commercialize such compounds.

Additionally, Curis has selected a second preclinical program within the immuno-oncology collaboration with Aurigene that is focused on evaluating small molecule antagonists with dual PD-L1 and T-cell immunoglobulin and mucin domain containing protein-3 (TIM-3) targeting properties. TIM-3 is an inhibitory checkpoint molecule that plays an important role in immune suppression and is co-expressed with programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) receptors on highly exhausted cytotoxic T cells in tumor tissues as well as expressed on certain regulatory T cells.