Press Release
St. Genis-Pouilly, France, 3 November 2022
Concr’s proprietary statistical modelling, which uses cosmology methods, will identify biomarkers to help select patients most likely to respond to Step Pharma compounds targeting cytidine triphosphate synthase 1 (CTPS1).
St. Genis-Pouilly, France and London, UK, 07 December 2022 – Step Pharma, the world leader in CTPS1 inhibition for the targeted treatment of cancer, and Concr, a techbio company with a statistical learning-powered biomarker prediction engine, today announced a partnership to identify biomarkers to improve therapeutic response to inhibitors of cytidine triphosphate synthase 1 (CTPS1), an enzyme to which all cancers appear to be addicted.
Concr’s proprietary data modelling will be used to identify biomarkers for Step Pharma’s cancer drug assets, which includes its first-in-class, highly selective, orally bioavailable CTPS1 inhibitor, STP938, by effectively integrating diverse experimental data with patient and tumour-centric datasets. Concr adopts cosmology methods to effectively combine diverse data types into a single holistic tumour model with superior predictive power. The biological insights generated will be utilised by Step Pharma in its pre-clinical and clinical development programmes, with the overall aim of improving patient response and outcomes.
Andrew Parker, Chief Executive Officer of Step Pharma, commented:
“We are committed to bringing our targeted treatments, including STP938, to patients as fast as possible. To this end, we are excited to partner with Concr and employ its integrated analysis of complex datasets to explore the potential to accelerate the development of our targeted cancer therapy assets and maximise their utility. Our collaboration with Concr is aimed at deepening our understanding of CTPS1 biology and identifying patients most likely to respond to CTPS1 inhibition.”
Matt Foster, Chief Executive Officer of Concr, added:
“There is a significant need for novel targeted therapies across a range of cancer types. However, only with successful application of biomarkers can such cutting edge therapeutic developments be optimally applied in a clinical setting. Concr is excited to be enabling this to happen with Step Pharma – utilising our approach to ensure inhibitors of CTPS1 have the greatest chance of translational success by being applied to patients who will truly benefit.”
Step Pharma recently entered clinical development with its first in class CTPS1 inhibitor STP938 in a Phase I/II trial for T cell and B cell lymphomas and is the latest company to utilise the potential of data and predictive modelling for translational research. By inhibiting the enzyme CTPS1, Step Pharma can selectively target the de novo pyrimidine synthesis pathway in cancer cells, enabling highly selective treatment of both blood cancers and solid tumours. Concr’s existing partnerships are investigating biomarkers of response in multiple cancer types, including breast cancer and cancer of unknown primary.
Contacts
Step Pharma
Andrew Parker, Chief Executive Officer
contact@step-ph.com
Concr
Matt Foster, Chief Executive Officer
info@concr.co
Media Relations
Consilium Strategic Communications
Amber Fennell, Namrata Taak, Stella Lempidaki
T. +44 (0) 20 3709 5700
steppharma@consilium-comms.com
About Step Pharma
Step Pharma’s goal is to bring about a step change in how cancer is treated with targeted therapies that kill cancer cells and leave healthy cells unharmed. The Company is the world leader in CTPS1 inhibition, a new approach with the potential to yield highly selective, safe and effective cancer treatments for both blood cancers and solid tumours.
The Company’s lead product STP938 has received both IND and CTA clearance to proceed into first in human trials in the US and UK for the treatment of T cell and B cell lymphomas. Clinical trials in lymphoma commenced in the second half of 2022. STP938 has the potential to be the backbone of a multitude of cancer therapies as well as a potent monotherapy for hard-to-treat blood cancers.
Step Pharma was founded in 2014 by Kurma Partners, the Imagine Institute and Sygnature Discovery, based on the scientific discoveries of Prof. Alain Fischer and Dr Sylvain Latour. Step Pharma is based in Saint-Genis-Pouilly, France, and is supported by a strong syndicate of investors led by Kurma Partners and including Bpifrance (Fonds Biothérapies Innovantes et Maladies Rares and InnoBio2 Fund), Pontifax, Hadean Ventures, Sunstone Life Science Ventures, Inserm Transfert Initiative, Idinvest, Sygnature Discovery and the Imagine Institute.
About Concr
Concr is a mission-driven techbio company that answers essential questions in oncology through solving data. By adopting astrophysics methods used to study the universe, Concr unlocked the ability to effectively integrate diverse and incomplete datasets to help scientists identify and develop biomarkers for their drugs with 300x less pre-clinical and 7x less clinical data. Using Concr’s online platform – Nightingale – researchers can make advanced predictions about biomarkers and model patient response by leveraging Concr’s unique technology, as well as perform standard bioinformatics analyses directly.
The company is headquartered in London, UK, with a wholly-owned subsidiary in Brisbane, Australia. The company is a venture capital-backed enterprise, with investors including the University of Cambridge Enterprise, Cambridge Angels, R42 and Deep Science Ventures.
About STP938
STP938 is a first-in-class, highly selective, orally bioavailable inhibitor of CTP synthase 1 (CTPS1), a key component of the pyrimidine synthesis pathway. CTPS1 inhibition inhibits the proliferation of neoplastic lymphoid cells and results in cell death. All cancers appear to be addicted to CTPS1 for DNA synthesis. STP938 entered clinical development in September 2022 for the treatment of T cell and B cell lymphoma.
