Research published in Journal of the American Chemical Society highlights potential of HIF Inhibition as a therapeutic approach for cancers

Curve Therapeutics is a leader in the discovery of innovative therapeutics to address disease targets which are difficult to target using conventional drug discovery methods. Through the utilisation of its world leading Microcyle® discovery platform, Curve can screen directly inside mammalian cells, allowing for the identification of biologically active library members within an intracellular environment where both the library and the target are present in their native conformations. Curve is developing a non-peptidic, small-molecule dual inhibitor of HIF-1 and HIF-2 with first-in-class potential.

Curve Therapeutics is a leader in the discovery of innovative therapeutics to address disease targets which are difficult to target using conventional drug discovery methods. Through the utilisation of its world leading Microcyle® discovery platform, Curve can screen directly inside mammalian cells, allowing for the identification of biologically active library members within an intracellular environment where both the library and the target are present in their native conformations. Curve is developing a non-peptidic, small-molecule dual inhibitor of HIF-1 and HIF-2 with first-in-class potential.

This is the first report of a dual HIF-1 and HIF-2 inhibitor which functions by inhibiting the interaction of both HIF-1α and HIF-2α with HIF-1β. The Microcycles discovered by Prof. Tavassoli were identified using his SICLOPPS screening platform and show good cellular activity. Patents and patent applications describing these HIF inhibitory Microcycles are exclusively licensed to Curve.

About Curve Therapeutics

Curve Therapeutics is a private biotechnology company pioneering a revolutionary intracellular screening platform to enable the discovery of innovative therapeutics that address complex and challenging disease targets with the potential to transform the lives of patients. Curve originated from world-leading Microcycle® research conducted by Professor Tavassoli's group in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Southampton, UK. Curve is backed by blue chip investors including Advent Life Sciences, Epidarex Capital, Pfizer Ventures, Columbus Venture Partners and British Patient Capital. Curve has a US$1.7bn global research collaboration with MSD the trade name of Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, NJ USA, to discover and validate modulators of up to five therapeutic targets using its Microcycle® technology, initially for oncology and neurology indications. For more information visit: www.curvetx.com.

About Curve's Microcycle® platform

Curve has developed an IP-protected, mammalian cell platform technology for functional screening and enrichment of diverse hexameric cyclic peptide Microcycle® libraries to identify those library members that have the desired biological activity against a therapeutic target. Curve's platform allows direct screening for biologically active library members inside mammalian cells and facilitates small molecule hit-to-lead programmes. A key advantage of the technology is that both the library and the target are present in all of their native conformations within a cell. Uniquely, the compact size and rigid structure of Microcycles® enables the design of non-peptide small molecule leads. The platform can be used for a wide range of therapeutically relevant targets, including protein-protein and protein-DNA interactions and has been used by Curve to develop a pipeline of cancer programmes against targets including a dual HIF-1/HIF-2 inhibitor and an inhibitor of ATIC homodimerization.

^{[1] Andrew T. Ball, Soran Mohammed, Cyrielle Doigneaux, Reece M. Gardner, James W. Easton, Steven Turner, Jonathan W. Essex, Garry Pairaudeau, Ali Tavassoli, Identification and Development of Cyclic Peptide Inhibitors of Hypoxia Inducible Factors 1 and 2 That Disrupt Hypoxia-Response Signaling in Cancer Cells, Journal of the American Chemical Society (19 March 2024) DOI: 10.1021/jacs.3c10508}

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