On July 15, 2025 Aptose Biosciences Inc. ("Aptose" or the "Company") (TSX: APS; OTC: APTOF), a clinical-stage precision oncology company developing a tuspetinib (TUS) based triple drug frontline therapy to treat patients with newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia (AML), reported that it has received an additional advance of US$2.0M from Hanmi Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. ("Hanmi"), as part of a US$8.5M loan facility agreement with Hanmi (the "Loan Agreement") announced prior on June 20, 2025 (Press release, Aptose Biosciences, JUL 15, 2025, View Source [SID1234654377]). To date, Aptose has received an aggregate of US$4.5M under the Loan Agreement.
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"Tuspetinib in combination with venetoclax and azacitidine (the TUS+VEN+AZA triplet) continues to demonstrate exciting antileukemic activity and safety across genetically diverse populations of newly diagnosed AML patients – including TP53-mutated AML and wildtype AML, representing large AML populations for which there are few treatment options," said William G. Rice, Ph.D., Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Aptose. "We are very grateful to Hanmi for its continued support to help advance tuspetinib clinical development and further extend Aptose’s ability to fund this important study."
Tuspetinib is a convenient once daily oral agent that potently inhibits targets that drive excessive proliferation and anti-apoptotic mechanisms, including SYK, mutated and wild type forms of FLT3, mutated KIT, JAK1/2, and RSK2 kinases. Yet, TUS maintains a favorable safety profile by avoiding typical toxicity concerns observed with other agents. The ongoing TUSCANY triplet Phase 1/2 study is designed to test various doses and schedules of TUS in combination with standard dosing of azacitidine and venetoclax in newly diagnosed patients with AML who are ineligible to receive induction chemotherapy. At the European Hematology Association (EHA) (Free EHA Whitepaper) Congress in June, Aptose reported early data from the first two dose cohorts that have demonstrated safety, CRs and minimal residual disease (MRD) negativity across patients with diverse mutations.