Mosaic Therapeutics, a targeted oncology therapeutics company dedicated to resolving cancer’s complexity with new combination therapies for patients, has announced the in-licensing of two clinical-stage oncology programs from Astex Pharmaceuticals, a wholly owned subsidiary of Otsuka Pharmaceutical.
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As part of the agreement, Astex has taken an equity stake in Mosaic equating to a fully-diluted ownership stake of 19% equity upfront and a further 3% dependent on clinical milestones, which will consolidate the partnership between these two innovation-driven businesses. Astex will also receive potential future revenue shares. Dr. Harren Jhoti, co-founder, president and chief executive officer of Astex, will also take an observer role on the Mosaic Board. Other financial details have not been disclosed.
Mosaic’s platform identifies combinations of pairs of oncology drugs predicted to have synergistic activity in biomarker-defined patient populations and expected to lead to greater efficacy and durability of response than achieved as monotherapy. The development strategy for each combination product is to seek a broad, biomarker-defined label across multiple tumour types. The two small molecule assets from Astex are ASTX029, an ERK1/2 inhibitor discovered by Astex that has completed a Phase 2 clinical study and ASTX295 an MDM2 antagonist discovered by Astex in collaboration with the Cancer Research UK Drug Discovery Unit at Newcastle University, that has completed a Phase 1 clinical study. Each of the two licensed compounds has been studied in more than 100 patients and demonstrated differentiated safety profiles within their target class and single-agent activity as monotherapies, enabling use in combination therapies.
“Mosaic’s mission is to bring novel targeted combination medicines to patients who need them,” said Dr. Edward Hodgkin, managing partner of Syncona Investment Management Limited and chair of Mosaic. “The in licensing of these two clinical-stage assets provides a step change in our development pipeline, allowing Mosaic to progress targeted drug combinations in novel biomarker-defined settings and enabling the delivery of precision medicines for patients who currently have few therapeutic options. Excitingly the deal significantly accelerates Mosaic’s development path, with the first clinical combination study expected to commence in 2026.”
“We recognise the significance of Mosaic’s platform, which has identified these two assets as anchor components of a pipeline of potential combination products,” said Dr. Harren Jhoti, co-founder, president and chief executive officer of Astex. “Both drug targets are well-characterised drivers of many cancers, and we are excited to be working with the experienced team at Mosaic to expand the Company’s pipeline in combination therapies with high unmet medical need.”