Captor Therapeutics Reports Q3 2022 Results and Provides Business Update

Lead assets approaching the clinic and new significant drug discovery collaboration signed with Ono Pharmaceutical

WROCŁAW, Poland, Nov. 25, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Captor Therapeutics S.A. (WSE:CTX), a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the development of Targeted Protein Degradation (TPD)-based drugs for the treatment for cancer and autoimmune diseases, reports its financial results for the third quarter of 2022 and provides a business update. The Company has made further substantial progress in the development of its lead programs throughout the period, most notably CT-01, with the selection of a drug candidate and the initiation of the necessary steps to generate the data required to commence clinical trials in patients. Following the reporting period, the Company has announced that it signed a drug discovery collaboration with Japanese pharmaceutical company Ono Pharmaceutical that could generate up to €197 million in an upfront payment, R&D funding and milestones, in addition to royalties on global sales.

CT-01 is Captor’s lead asset and is being developed as a treatment for hepatocellular carcinoma (a form of liver cancer). Earlier pre-clinical studies allowed Captor to select the best drug candidate to progress to the clinic. Captor has consequently initiated the necessary steps with this drug candidate to generate the data required to submit a Clinical Trial Authorization (CTA) and Investigational New Drug (IND) Application. These activities include larger scale manufacturing, toxicological testing and additional in-vivo efficacy testing, the latter confirming in animal models that the drug candidate causes strong tumor regression. Captor remains on track to initiate a clinical trial in 2023.

Captor continued to strengthen its partnership activities and announced an agreement with Ono Pharmaceutical Co. ltd. (which took place after the end of the reported period) to develop small-molecule compounds capable of degrading a selected molecular target, primarily for application in neurodegenerative diseases for which there is currently no effective therapy. The market for neurodegenerative diseases (i.e., a group of conditions that include, among others, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson's disease) is estimated to be worth tens of billions of dollars in annual sales and is growing steadily due to the aging of the population in most developed countries.