QUANTRO Therapeutics Achieves Milestone with Boehringer Ingelheim in Developing First-in-Class Cancer Treatments
QUANTRO Therapeutics (QUANTRO), a pioneer in the discovery of first-in-class transcription factor targeting cancer treatments, announced today that the company has reached a key milestone in its joint R&D program with Boehringer Ingelheim.
In successfully applying QUANTRO’s proprietary QUANTROseq® Transcriptional Fingerprint technology, all pre-set goals for technical proof-of-concept, cross-validation of HTS screening technology and identification of high-quality hits for a previously undruggable transcription factor were fully accomplished.
For many cancer patients, there are no or only limited treatment options, which is why cancer remains to be a leading cause of death worldwide, accounting for nearly one in six deaths. Transcription factors have emerged as a promising class of therapeutic targets to address currently undruggable cancers.
Transcription factors are central regulators of gene expression that are commonly dysregulated in cancer and have remained largely unamenable to pharmacological intervention.
The joint R&D program, which was initiated in 2022, aims at changing the implied status quo via development of transformational, first-in-class cancer treatments.
“We are committed to drive a positive change for people affected by cancer, and to that end are looking forward to developing new mode of action compounds jointly with Boehringer Ingelheim.
In reaching this milestone, QUANTRO Therapeutics continues to advance its leading transcriptomic R&D platform to build a highly innovative pipeline of modulators, inhibitors or degraders of transcription factors, transcriptional regulators and cell signaling targets,” – commented Michael Bauer, CEO of QUANTRO.
“We are excited and encouraged to see a very convincing and robust technology proof of concept, and highly attractive hits from the first screening that we can directly take to the next discovery and development stages.
We look forward to further expanding our pipeline of first-in-class treatments to address the remaining high unmet patient need in cancer in partnership with QUANTRO,” – said Norbert Kraut, Global Head of Cancer Research at Boehringer Ingelheim.
Upon accomplishment of this milestone, QUANTRO will receive an undisclosed milestone payment in addition to previously received upfront payments and R&D funding. The total potential transaction value may exceed EUR 500 million in form of R&D funding and success driven discovery, development, regulatory and commercial milestones.
About QUANTRO
QUANTRO Therapeutics is a transcriptomic Drug Discovery and R&D company focused on building a highly innovative pipeline of modulators, inhibitors or degraders of transcription factors, transcriptional regulators and cell signaling targets. QUANTRO´s transcriptomic discovery platform is using a novel and proprietary time-resolved gene expression profiling technology to target gene transcription factors thus far considered un-druggable.
The technology is uniquely positioned to quantify changes in gene expression over time with unprecedented precision and sensitivity, overcoming the deficiencies of traditional RTqPCR based technologies like DrugSeq, which are limited to only measure RNA abundance, without information on transcriptional activity and dynamics.
QUANTRO was founded in in 2019 as Spin-out from the prestigious research institutes IMBA and IMP in Vienna, Austria, and since 2020 supported by Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund BIVF and Evotec as SEED investors. In total EUR 11 million SEED financing were placed in milestone-driven tranches in 2020 and 2023.