Theseus Prescribed drugs, which aimed to conquer the resistance that cancers broaden to medication, is shedding maximum of its team of workers and exploring choices that would result in offers that eke out some worth from the corporate’s ultimate property.
The announcement after Monday’s marketplace shut come 4 months after early medical knowledge for Theseus’s lead program confirmed dose-limiting toxicities in two out of six sufferers. The discovering led Cambridge, Massachusetts-based to discontinue that program.
Theseus has different systems and money to fortify them. As of the top of the second one quarter of this 12 months, Theseus reported its money place used to be $234 million, which the corporate estimated would ultimate into 2026. On the finish of September, Theseus stated its money place used to be $225.4 million.
Regardless that Theseus in the past mentioned plans to additional broaden its pipeline, it has since reconsidered. On Nov. 6, Theseus determined to put off 26 workers, representing about 72% of its team of workers, the corporate stated in a Monday regulatory submitting. The layoffs will result in $5.5 million in severance prices, which the corporate expects will likely be incurred within the present quarter.
Amongst the ones shedding a task is William C. Shakespeare, the biotech’s president of study and construction. Theseus stated Shakespeare will proceed in a consultative function till June 30, 2024. The corporate additionally stated it plans to believe “quite a lot of choices with a focal point on maximizing shareholder worth.” The ones strategic choices may come with a sale of the corporate, a merger with any other trade, or every other transaction, Theseus stated.
Theseus’s former lead drug candidate, THE-360, used to be advanced to regard gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST), a kind of intestine most cancers pushed via mutations to the KIT gene that result in mutated sorts of the KIT kinase. Medication from the category of medications known as tyrosine kinase inhibitors are to be had as first- and second-line therapies for GIST, however drug resistance is an ongoing downside. Theseus aimed to conquer resistance via growing “pan-variant” tyrosine kinase inhibitors supposed to focus on the principle cancer-causing and drug-resistance mutations. THE-360 used to be designed to handle the more than a few mutations of the KIT kinase.
With the discontinuation of THE-360, Theseus shifted focal point to THE-349, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor designed to focus on mutated variations of a most cancers protein known as EGFR. Advanced as a possible remedy for EGFR mutant non-small mobile lung most cancers, Theseus mentioned in its record of moment quarter monetary effects that it deliberate to put up an investigational new drug software for the molecule within the fourth quarter of this 12 months. The corporate additionally indicated it supposed to appoint further drug applicants, together with any other pan-variant KIT inhibitor for GIST.
Theseus used to be incubated via OrbiMed and printed its option to most cancers in 2021, sponsored via a $100 million Sequence B financing. Months later, the corporate finished its IPO, pricing stocks at $16 apiece and elevating $160 million. On Tuesday, stocks of Theseus opened at $3.05, up 42.5% from Monday’s ultimate value.
Symbol: Getty Photographs
