| Name | Title | Contact Details |
|---|---|---|
David Lafond |
Vice-President of Innovation and Technology | Profile |
Loxo Oncology is committed to the discovery, development, and commercialization of targeted cancer therapies with best-in-class potential. Our diverse pipeline reflects the convergence of proven therapeutic technologies with emerging insights into the underlying susceptibilities of cancer and drug resistance. It is an exciting time to develop cancer drugs. Diagnostic methods are yielding strong clues about which cancer features are actionable, “driver alterations,” in contrast to those merely along for the ride as “passenger alterations.” In the last five years, these insights have transformed the standard of care in melanoma, lung cancer and other cancers. Picking a target is just the first step in building a cancer drug. Good chemists build good drugs. The physical properties of a compound have much to do with its ultimate success or failure. Is it stable? Is it soluble? Is it absorbed? Does it reach its target? Does it engage the target? Does it cause toxicity elsewhere in the body before it achieves maximum efficacy in the cancer? In our opinion, drugs that achieve excellent exposure in the body and are highly specific for their intended targets have the highest chances of success. Once an attractive target is selected and a drug with best-in-class properties is constructed, setting up the right clinical development plan is of utmost importance. Our goal is to generate a clinical path that reflects the underlying scientific hypothesis that made the drug interesting in the first place. This often means developing the drug in a population of patients whose tumors possess a specific vulnerability targeted by the drug. Loxo Oncology was built around a team of full-time professionals and engaged scientific advisors who are aligned in choosing the most actionable targets, and pursuing them through disciplined clinical trial approaches. Our license and collaboration agreement with Array Biopharma and our experienced team allow us to construct drugs with best-in-class properties from the ground up.
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Elicio is committed to transforming the lives of patients and their families by re-engineering the body`s immune response to cancer. By combining expertise in materials science and immunology, Elicio is engineering potent vaccines and immuno-therapies for an array of aggressive cancers. The Elicio Amphiphile platform enables precise targeting and delivery of immunogens directly to the lymphatic system, the “brain center” of the immune response, to significantly amplify and enhance the body`s own system of defenses, to defeat cancer and stop its recurrence. This substantially enhanced anti-tumor functionality and long-term protective memory could unlock the full potential of the human immune response to eliminate cancer. Elicio`s lead Amphiphile vaccines targeting pancreatic, colorectal, and head and neck cancer will begin initial patient studies in early 2020. Elicio was founded to expand and apply the ground-breaking Amphiphile technology invented and developed in the labs of Darrell Irvine Ph.D., Professor of Biological Engineering and Materials Sciences and Howard Hughes Investigator, at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Preclinical studies have demonstrated that Elicio`s Amphiphile vaccines target and concentrate in the lymph nodes resulting in unprecedented tumor-specific immune responses and durable cures of aggressive tumor models in mice.
Ikena Oncology is a clinical-stage biotechnology company that discovers and develops patient-directed, biomarker-driven therapies for cancer patients.