Vivace Therapeutics announces dosing of first cohort of patients with its first-in-class TEAD inhibitor

SAN MATEO, Calif., May 4, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Vivace Therapeutics, Inc., a small molecule discovery and development company developing first-in-class therapies targeting the Hippo pathway, announced today the completion of enrollment of the first cohort of patients being treated with VT3989 in its Phase 1 clinical study. The Company anticipates enrolling the next higher dose cohort in the second part of May.  

The VT3989 Phase 1 study is now open at centers in both the US and Australia (https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04665206) to evaluate the safety, tolerability, PK and biological activity of VT3989 in patients with refractory metastatic solid tumors, including refractory pleural malignant mesothelioma. The study is currently in dose escalation, to be followed by a dose expansion phase in which patients with NF2 mutant tumors will be enrolled after an optimal dose is determined. "To the best of our knowledge, we are the first company to test a small molecule in the clinic targeting this important pathway. Our preclinical work has shown that tumors with NF2 mutations are quite sensitive to VT3989, especially NF2-deficient mesothelioma," said Leonard Post, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer of Vivace Therapeutics.

"The Phase 1 clinical study is designed to test the translatability of our preclinical observations in cancer patients as quickly as possible. We are enrolling patients with a variety of signaling abnormalities during dose escalation and will allow NF2-mutated patients to backfill any previously cleared dose cohorts.  In addition, our study design allows for intra-patient dose escalation so that patients who are tolerating VT3989 at a given dose may increase to the highest well-tolerated dose," said Andrew Dorr, M.D., Chief Medical Officer of Vivace Therapeutics.

The Company has filed patent applications across a diverse set of chemotypes, all of which inhibit palmitoylation of members of the transcriptional enhanced associate domain (TEAD) protein family.  The latest publication from Vivace Therapeutics titled "Small Molecule Inhibitors of TEAD Auto-palmitoylation Selectively Inhibit Proliferation and Tumor Growth of NF2-deficient Mesothelioma" in Molecule Cancer Therapeutics (https://mct.aacrjournals.org/content/early/2021/04/13/1535-7163.MCT-20-0717) presented some of the preclinical work done by the company.

About Vivace Therapeutics, Inc.

Vivace Therapeutics is a small molecule drug discovery and development company focused on targeting the Hippo pathway. The company is pursuing several first-in-class drug candidates to treat human carcinomas of high unmet medical need. Based in San Francisco Bay Area, the company has raised $70 million to date, and is funded by leading biotechnology investors, including Canaan Partners, WuXi Healthcare Ventures, Cenova Capital, Sequoia Capital China, Boxer Capital and RA Capital Mangement. For more information, please visit www.vivacetherapeutics.com.   

About the Hippo Pathway

The Hippo pathway is a key pathway used by cells to control expression of a group of genes by regulating activity of transcription factors YAP and TAZ.  YAP and TAZ function in a complex with partner proteins, the TEADs, which are the targets of VT3989.   A variety of human cancers depend on activation of YAP and TAZ, which can occur by various mechanisms.   One mechanism by which YAP is activated in tumors is mutation of the NF2 gene.  NF2 mutation can occur in many tumor types, including a high percentage of mesothelioma and meningioma.

Contact Information
Sofie Qiao, Ph.D.
President and CEO
[email protected]
650.666.2753

SOURCE Vivace Therapeutics, Inc.

Related Links

https://www.vivacetherapeutics.com