Cidara Therapeutics Nominates First Oncology Clinical Development Candidate from its Cloudbreak Platform

CBO-212 is a first-in-class inhibitor of CD73 cancer immunotherapy target

SAN DIEGO, Jan. 04, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cidara Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: CDTX), a biotechnology company developing long-acting therapeutics designed to improve the standard of care for patients facing serious diseases, today announced that it has selected its first oncology drug-Fc conjugate (DFC) candidate from the company’s Cloudbreak platform: CBO-212, targeting CD73.

“We are excited to start the new year by announcing CBO-212 as our first oncology DFC, marking a significant inflection point for Cidara and our Cloudbreak platform,” said Jeffrey Stein, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer of Cidara. “With our Cloudbreak oncology program we seek to develop a new generation of immunotherapies, and our CBO-212 DFC is a first-in-class CD73 inhibitor that combines the strengths of small molecules and monoclonal antibodies targeting CD73. We look forward to advancing CBO-212 through IND enabling studies and providing updates on its progress in leading conferences as we continue to generate more data.”

CBO-212 targets CD73, which contributes to immune evasion in solid cancers by flooding the microenvironment surrounding tumors with adenosine, a potent immune cell suppressor. CD73 is highly expressed on a variety of tumor and stromal cells as well as immunosuppressive cell populations such as regulatory T cells and myeloid-derived suppressor cells. CBO-212 is designed to address the potency, efficacy, pharmacokinetic and safety limitations of small molecule and monoclonal antibody candidates targeting CD73.

Cloudbreak DFCs stably couple highly potent small molecules or peptides to a proprietary variant of a human antibody fragment (Fc). As a result, DFCs are long-acting, and are designed to directly inhibit specific disease targets. DFCs can be tuned to engage the immune system or to be immune silent, expanding the breadth of indications that can be targeted. Immune active DFCs can attract an immune response against cancer cells to maximize disease eradicating activity, while immune silent DFCs allow for expansion into cancer indications where immune system engagement would result in host toxicity.