Theseus Prescribed drugs, which aimed to conquer the resistance that cancers expand to medication, is shedding maximum of its personnel and exploring choices that might 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 scientific 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 techniques and money to fortify them. As of the top of the second one quarter of this yr, Theseus reported its money place was once $234 million, which the corporate estimated would closing into 2026. On the finish of September, Theseus mentioned its money place was once $225.4 million.
Regardless that Theseus in the past said plans to additional expand its pipeline, it has since reconsidered. On Nov. 6, Theseus determined to put off 26 staff, representing about 72% of its personnel, the corporate mentioned in a Monday regulatory submitting. The layoffs will result in $5.5 million in severance prices, which the corporate expects can be incurred within the present quarter.
Amongst the ones shedding a task is William C. Shakespeare, the biotech’s president of study and building. Theseus mentioned Shakespeare will proceed in a consultative position till June 30, 2024. The corporate additionally mentioned it plans to imagine “a variety of choices with a focal point on maximizing shareholder worth.” The ones strategic possible choices may just come with a sale of the corporate, a merger with any other industry, or any other transaction, Theseus mentioned.
Theseus’s former lead drug candidate, THE-360, was once advanced to regard gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST), a kind of intestine most cancers pushed by means of mutations to the KIT gene that result in mutated varieties of the KIT kinase. Medicine from the category of medications referred to as tyrosine kinase inhibitors are to be had as first- and second-line remedies for GIST, however drug resistance is an ongoing downside. Theseus aimed to conquer resistance by means of growing “pan-variant” tyrosine kinase inhibitors supposed to focus on the primary cancer-causing and drug-resistance mutations. THE-360 was once designed to deal with 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 referred to as EGFR. Evolved as a possible remedy for EGFR mutant non-small mobile lung most cancers, Theseus said in its file 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 yr. The corporate additionally indicated it supposed to appoint further drug applicants, together with any other pan-variant KIT inhibitor for GIST.
Theseus was once incubated by means of OrbiMed and printed its solution to most cancers in 2021, sponsored by means of a $100 million Collection 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 last worth.
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