Researchers from TYK Medicines Inc. have reported the discovery and preclinical evaluation of TY-1091, a second-generation RET inhibitor being developed for the treatment of RET-mutant cancers.

IL-18 is a pro-inflammatory cytokine that triggers IFN-γ production and increases T- and NK-cell activity. IL-18’s effects are blocked by IL-18 binding protein (IL-18BP), an endogenous protein that binds to IL-18 with high affinity and that is highly present in the tumor microenvironment (TME).

Scisparc Ltd.’s drug discovery joint venture, Mitocarex Bio, has successfully developed its core algorithm for allowing the generation of reliable...

In the latest deal from the burgeoning antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) space, Eisai Co. Ltd. and privately held Bliss Biopharmaceutical (Hangzhou) Co. Ltd. reached a development and commercialization agreement that could be worth up to $2 billion. The massive collaboration is the eighth largest so far this year and one of three that involve ADCs in the year’s top 10 deals. The year’s biggest, according to BioWorld statistics, is the partnership extension between Evotec SE and Bristol Myers Squibb Co. to identify neurodegenerative disease therapies for eight years. The other ADC deals involve Synaffix BV, which signed a $2 billion pact in January with Amgen Inc., and a $2.2 billion expanded deal in February with Macrogenics Inc.

The idea for a new company, Ten63 Therapeutics Inc., started in 2015, when Gilda Szacher Frenkel passed away at age 62 from pancreatic cancer. After sequencing her tumor, her son Marcel discovered that her cancer was driven by mutations to key proteins that regulate cellular processes – all the “usual suspects,” he said. At the time, he remembers they were initially encouraged by the discovery and excited to search for developed drugs that could help her. “Here was this blueprint telling us what was wrong,” Marcel Frenkel said, “but, unfortunately, those mutations were unactionable. There were no drugs to modulate the main oncologic drivers.”