ORIC Pharmaceuticals has announced an agreement with Cancer Research UK to advance a potential first-in-class CIP2A-targeted therapy into clinical development.

Under the agreement, Cancer Research UK’s Centre for Drug Development (CDD) will fully fund, sponsor, design and execute CTA-enabling studies and early clinical development of ORIC-259 for patients with cancer. ORIC retains an option to reacquire rights to ORIC-259 following phase 1/2 data, with Cancer Research UK eligible to receive downstream milestone payments and royalties.

Cancerous Inhibitor of PP2A (CIP2A) is a protein that contributes to the development and progression of many cancer types due to its role in protein phosphorylation, mitosis, and DNA damage response. ORIC-259 is a potent, selective, orally bioavailable small molecule degrader of CIP2A mRNA. This potential first-in-class mRNA degrader is designed to modify mRNA splicing to incorporate a premature stop codon, leading to mRNA degradation and loss of CIP2A protein, which is critical for cell proliferation and survival of cancers with homologous recombination deficiency (HRD).

Lori Friedman, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer, ORIC Pharmaceuticals, said, “We are excited to partner with Cancer Research UK to advance ORIC-259, a potential first-in-class CIP2A-targeted therapy, into the clinic. Cancer Research UK’s proven expertise and capabilities in developing innovative cancer therapies make it an ideal partner for the program, while this structure allows us to remain disciplined in allocating our internal resources to our late-stage clinical pipeline.”

Promising preclinical data highlight robust antitumor activity in PARP inhibitor sensitive and resistant settings, indicating broad potential for patients with Homologous Recombination Deficiency (HRD) cancers, and supports the path to clinical development for ORIC-259.

Lars Erwig, Director, CDD, said, “ORIC-259 represents an innovative approach to targeting CIP2A, a protein with significant potential in cancer but one that has proven difficult to drug. We share ORIC’s mission to overcome treatment resistance in cancer, and we look forward to applying our expertise to explore new treatment options for patients.”