Apeiron to Expand Investment in Synthetic Lethality Pipeline After New Phase in Collaboration with Exscientia
July 18, 2024 – San Francisco, USA, and Shanghai, China – Apeiron Therapeutics (Apeiron) announced today that it has reached an agreement with Exscientia plc (NASDAQ: EXAI), granting Exscientia full control over GTAEXS617 ('617) and all related intellectual property. This asset is currently in the ELUCIDATE Phase 1/2 clinical trial stage.
Under the terms of the agreement, Apeiron will receive an upfront payment of $30 million in cash and equity, in addition to receiving single digit royalties if Exscientia or a third party commercializes '617, which could be worth over $100 million in the upcoming years.
The ELUCIDATE trial's monotherapy dose escalation phase aims to evaluate the safety, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamics of '617 in patients with advanced solid tumors. Recruitment for the trial is progressing well. Data from the monotherapy dose escalation phase is expected in the second half of 2024 and transition to a combination dose escalation phase in late 2024 or early 2025.
Dr. Mingxi Li, CEO of Apeiron, commented, "Our collaboration with Exscientia has entered a new phase, with Exscientia taking full control of '617 while we remain a supportive shareholder. We are confident in the potential of '617 and believe Exscientia has the resources and capabilities to develop this transformative asset. This transaction enables us to concentrate our efforts on the remainder of our synthetic lethality pipeline and deepen our commitment to providing innovative therapies to cancer patients worldwide. This includes GTA182, a potentially best-in-class next-generation PRMT5 inhibitor, which will soon enter clinical trials.”
About ELUCIDATE
The ELUCIDATE trial is a multicentre, open-label, two-stage clinical trial to evaluate safety, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics and efficacy of ‘617 administered orally as monotherapy and in combination with standard of care therapies. The company is enrolling patients with solid tumours including head and neck cancer, colorectal cancer, pancreatic cancer, non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), breast cancer and ovarian cancer, who have advanced, recurrent or metastatic disease and have failed standard of care.
Both the monotherapy and combination therapy dose escalation portion of the trial will enrol patients across multiple dose levels to determine the optimal biological dose (OBD). The dose expansion phase of the trial will commence upon identification of the OBD. The primary efficacy endpoint of the expansion phase is objective response rate (ORR).
CDK7 inhibition combines many potential benefits such as transcription inhibition, reduction of aberrant kinome activation, cell cycle inhibition and modulation of estrogen receptor activity. This makes it an attractive target to overcome common resistance pathways associated with CDK4/6 inhibition, which only targets the cell cycle. Exscientia believes ‘617 has the potential to overcome significant safety and efficacy limitations of existing approved treatments due to the underlying biology of CDK7 and our laser focus on maximising therapeutic index through an AI-designed molecule that enables tight control of both extent and duration of target inhibition.
About Apeiron Therapeutics
Apeiron is redefining medical discovery, using artificial intelligence to streamline the drug development process—from target selection to clinical trials. With strategic locations in the San Francisco Bay Area and Shanghai, and significant partnerships in Europe, Apeiron integrates talent and cutting-edge technologies spanning multiple regions. We believe that by pushing the frontiers of biomedical innovation and engaging talent globally we can create breakthrough medicines for the highest unmet medical needs.
About Exscientia
Exscientia is a technology-driven drug design and development company, committed to creating more effective medicines for patients, faster. Exscientia combines precision design with integrated experimentation, aiming to invent and develop the best possible drugs in the most efficient manner. Operating at the interfaces of human ingenuity, artificial intelligence (AI), automation and physical engineering, we pioneered the use of AI in drug discovery as the first company to progress AI-designed small molecules into a clinical setting. We have developed an internal pipeline focused on oncology, while our partnered pipeline extends to many other therapeutic areas. By leading this new approach to drug creation, we believe we can change the underlying economics of drug discovery and rapidly advance the best scientific ideas into medicines for patients.
For more information about GT Apeiron, please visit www.apeiron-bio.com.
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