Kairos Pharma, Ltd. (NYSE: KAPA) is a biopharma firm creating a pipeline of focused therapies for most cancers sufferers with excessive unmet medical wants. In an interview with AlphaStreet, Kairo Pharma’s chief government officer, Dr. John Yu, shared worthwhile insights into the corporate’s method to most cancers remedy and the imaginative and prescient driving its work. Dr. John can also be a Professor of Neurosurgery and Director of Surgical Neuro-Oncology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Middle. He holds a BAS from Stanford and an MD from Harvard Medical College and MIT.
Are you able to give a quick overview of Kairos Pharma and its operations?
Kairos Pharma is a clinical-stage firm creating focused therapeutics and immunotherapies to fight most cancers drug resistance, a elementary barrier to curing strong tumors. Our objective is to intervene early within the resistance course of and re-sensitize most cancers cells to remedy, all whereas supporting the immune system’s potential to detect and destroy malignant cells.
We’re at the moment advancing a pipeline of therapies designed to inhibit molecular drivers of resistance, such because the protein CD-105, which we’ve recognized as a key participant within the transition of tumors into treatment-resistant states. Our workforce consists of world-class researchers, clinicians, and drug builders who’re dedicated to turning most cancers drug resistance right into a manageable and doubtlessly reversible problem.
Our most up-to-date interim security and efficacy part 2 evaluation of our lead candidate ENV105 together with apalutamide in sufferers with metastatic castration-resistant prostate most cancers discovered that the drug was effectively tolerated when mixed with commonplace of care hormone remedy and showcased a median progression-free survival of greater than 13 months, 3 times longer than is typical with that sort of remedy.
By maximizing and elongating the effectiveness timeline of our present therapies, we enable sufferers and their physicians to proceed efficient regimens with out having to constantly swap therapeutics.
What differentiates ENV105 from different brokers focusing on treatment-resistant prostate and lung cancers?
Most cancers drug resistance is likely one of the best obstacles in oncology. Even when remedy is initially efficient, many tumors evolve over time to turn out to be unresponsive to it. This may occur via a wide range of mechanisms, modifications in gene expression, mutations in drug targets, immune evasion, or transformation into extra aggressive, stem-like phenotypes.
Probably the most essential features we’ve uncovered is the position of CD-105, a protein that turns into elevated after most cancers remedy. Its expression correlates with a shift within the tumor cell inhabitants towards most cancers stem-like cells, a subset of cells which can be extra adaptable, immune to stress, and troublesome to remove. These cells have enhanced survival mechanisms and are sometimes the culprits behind a most cancers’s resistance to the medicine that’s getting used to focus on it.
Standard remedy regimens attempt to keep forward of resistance by switching medication or utilizing mixture therapies. However these approaches are sometimes reactive, not preventive. Our technique is to straight disrupt the organic swap that allows resistance, in order that remedies stay efficient longer, and relapses are fewer and fewer aggressive.
By not permitting cancers to turn out to be immune to remedies, we’re successfully giving the present commonplace of care a greater probability of succeeding in additional sufferers.
What main challenges has Kairos confronted in advancing ENV105 via medical trials, and the way are you addressing them?
Drug growth all the time comes with hurdles, and oncology is especially complicated. From a regulatory standpoint, we have to present that our therapies are protected, well-tolerated, and ship a significant medical profit. Which means working rigorous trials with clear endpoints, equivalent to progression-free survival, general survival, or response fee enhancements when our drug is added to plain remedy.
As with every medical growth program, certainly one of our main challenges is to impart understanding of the distinctive potential of our drug to remodel medical care by countering resistance, which is the lynchpin of tumor recurrence and development. Like many rising biotech corporations, we face restricted model recognition, which may make it tougher to attach with corporations and buyers that “get it.” That mentioned, we’re constantly evolving our method—giving shows at nationwide medical conferences, rising our presence on social media, and proactively participating with the media—to broaden our attain and interact biotech stakeholders. Additional, our affiliation with one of many largest and extra famend hospitals within the nation, Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, supplies extra visibility.
Whereas we’re well-aware that there’s nonetheless a lot work to be finished to get these candidates to the sufferers that want them essentially the most, we’re inspired each by the science and the response from our buyers so far.
What’s Kairos’ technique for navigating regulatory hurdles as your lead candidates transfer towards approval?
One particular problem we face is that drug resistance is commonly a secondary endpoint in oncology trials. It’s not all the time as simple to quantify as tumor shrinkage or biomarker modifications. That’s why we’re designing our research to exhibit that our remedy can delay resistance, lengthen the sturdiness of response, and finally enhance outcomes over time.
We’re inspired by the rising openness of regulators, together with the FDA, to progressive mechanisms that tackle resistance and immune suppression. If we are able to again our claims with information, we consider there might be a transparent path ahead.
What’s your long-term imaginative and prescient for Kairos’ position in remodeling most cancers remedy?
We’re constructing Kairos to be a long-term chief in resistance-reversal therapeutics. What’s clear is that our method is opening up a brand new therapeutic class, one targeted not on changing most cancers therapies, however on making them work higher, longer.
Long term, we count on to increase into a number of tumor sorts, discover mixture regimens with checkpoint inhibitors and chemotherapy, and pursue strategic partnerships to speed up growth and commercialization. We’re additionally actively participating within the funding and biotech group to construct the infrastructure wanted for late-stage trials and eventual market entry.
Our objective is to place Kairos as a frontrunner within the battle in opposition to most cancers drug resistance, not simply with one drug, however with a brand new therapeutic class that modifications how we take into consideration remedy failure in most cancers.
(Disclaimer: The views expressed on this interview are solely these of the interviewee and don’t essentially replicate the views or opinions of AlphaStreet. It’s for informational functions solely and doesn’t represent funding recommendation, monetary steerage, or a suggestion to purchase or promote any securities.)
