C4 Therapeutics is sawing off another part of its solely owned pipeline, this time ending work on its clinical-stage BRAF degrader program in order to focus on its IKZF1/3 degrader cemsidomide.
The Massachusetts-based biotech is running a phase 1 trial of CFT1946, which is designed to treat BRAF V600 mutant solid tumors. C4T said findings from the study, which it presented at conferences last year, supported the drug’s “proof of mechanism and therapeutic potential.”
But in a first-quarter earnings release published Wednesday, May 7, the biotech said that “emerging clinical data and the company’s focus on strategic capital allocation” had led C4T to end further work on CFT1946 beyond the phase 1 study. Instead, the biotech will now seek partners to take this BRAF degrader work further.
There are currently no approved specific BRAF degraders, although BRAF V600 tumors are treated by BRAF inhibitors like Novartis’ Tafinlar and Pfizer’s Braftovi.
C4T ended March with $234.7 million to hand, with a further $4 million in preclinical milestone payments expected in the coming weeks from a long-running cancer collaboration with Roche. C4T expects its funds to stretch into 2027, and they will now be focused primarily on the company’s lead candidate cemsidomide.
The biotech is currently evaluating the IKZF1/3 degrader in a phase 1 study of patients with multiple myeloma or non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Half of the 10 myeloma patients who have received the highest, 100 μg, daily dose of the drug have achieved an overall response, which the biotech described as a “compelling response rate” in this morning’s release.
The company is expecting feedback from the FDA in the coming months to help determine the next stage of clinical development.
C4T also has another clinical-stage candidate in the form of an EGFR degrader called CFT8919, which is being evaluated in China by C4T’s partner Betta Pharmaceuticals. The hope is that CFT8919 will demonstrate effectiveness against EGFR mutations that have proved resistant to approved EGFR inhibitors.
“We remain focused on maximizing our cash runway, which includes advancing cemsidomide and pursuing our internal discovery pipeline focused on targets with a clear degrader rationale and compelling biology applicable to a broad range of therapeutic areas,” C4T CEO Andrew Hirsch said in the May 7 release.
It’s not the first time C4T has made a tough decision to streamline its pipeline. Last year, the company laid off 30% of its staff after clinical data suggested that the oral BRD9 degrader CFT8634 wouldn’t be effective enough at treating synovial sarcoma and SMARCB-1 null tumors.