On October 12, 2021 Sapience Therapeutics, Inc., a biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of peptide therapeutics to address difficult to treat oncology indications, reported that it was awarded a Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to establish proof-of-concept for the use of its second clinical candidate, ST316, to treat Wnt/β-catenin-dependent breast cancer (Press release, Sapience Therapeutics, OCT 12, 2021, View Source [SID1234591110]).
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"The Wnt pathway has remained out of reach for traditional pharmaceutical approaches, and novel modalities like ST316 are urgently needed to provide new therapeutic options for cancer patients," said Jim Rotolo, Ph.D., VP, Translational Pharmacology and Head of Research of Sapience Therapeutics. "This grant from the NCI/NIH allows us to further characterize the in vitro activity and in vivo safety and activity of ST316, which will enable us to accelerate the advancement of this program toward the clinic."
Sapience CEO and President, Dr. Barry Kappel added, "With our ST316 program, we are addressing one of the most desired undruggable targets in cancer. ST316 was designed to disrupt the pathologic aspects of Wnt/β-catenin while leaving the physiologic activities of this important pathway intact, and we appreciate the NCI/NIH support of additional preclinical work to allow us to explore its full potential."
This grant was supported by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R43CA265503. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
About ST316
β-catenin is a critical member of the canonical Wnt signaling pathway, a well-known development stage pathway that has been considered an "undruggable" cancer target, as small molecules have proven ineffective or toxic. Wnt/β-catenin signaling drives cancer initiation and contributes to tumor growth, angiogenesis and metastasis. ST316 exerts its activity through disruption of the BCL9/β-Catenin interaction to suppress transcription of Wnt target genes regulating proliferation, migration, invasion, and the metastatic potential of tumor cells. Sapience anticipates advancing ST316 into IND-enabling studies in 2021 and initiating clinical studies in late 2022.