Most targeted cancer drugs work for only a small fraction of patients—3 to 5 percent for some colorectal cancer immunotherapies. This team is developing a new class of drug that blocks a protein called IKKalpha, which acts as a central hub for inflammatory signals that fuel tumour growth, immune suppression, and blood vessel formation in prostate and colorectal cancers. Unlike existing therapies that target rare genetic mutations, this approach aims to treat the 30 to 50 percent of colorectal cancer patients whose tumours are driven by inflammation, identified by established biomarkers. The researchers have already created the first selective IKKalpha inhibitors, avoiding the severe side effects—chronic inflammation and immune suppression—that doomed earlier attempts to block a related protein, IKKbeta. If successful, this drug could be used alongside standard treatments like chemotherapy to prevent tumours from mounting an immunosuppressive defence, expanding effective treatment to a much larger patient population. The team plans to test their lead compounds in genetically engineered mouse models that mimic human inflammatory cancers, with an eye toward clinical trials.
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Targeted therapies in castrate-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) and colorectal cancer (CRC) have focussed upon specific driver mutations relevant to very small patient populations. We propose that IKKalpha is a critical signalling nexus that channels and sustains inflammatory signalling, and which is functionally relevant to genetically altered tumours cells, the adjacent immune infiltrate and the tumour vasculature. In targeting IKKalpha, we therefore have the opportunity to target multiple contributing compartments within the tumour microenvironment (TME) to systemically disrupt inflammatory signalling, and to abrogate the dynamic immunosuppressive response of tumours to current therapeutic interventions (e.g. chemotherapy, androgen deprivation therapy). We have developed the first series of selective IKKalpha-inhibitors (PCT Application No: PCT/GB2023/051242) and a back-up series (Application No: 2306601.2), creating a clear competitive advantage and unique opportunity to establish whether pharmacological intervention against this kinase in inflammation-driven solid tumours offers a new treatment paradigm. Our IKKalpha-inhibitor will be relevant to a larger, inflammatory cohort. For example, in CRC, current targeted therapies such as immune checkpoint inhibitors (pembrolizumab, nivolumab or ipilimumab) are restricted to stage IV disease, and are only efficacious in the 3-5% of patients, whilst encorafenib and cetuximab are effective only in the 8-10% of patients. If our targeted approach against IKKalpha is successful, it will be relevant to a significantly larger, inflammatory cohort, thus expanding the target patient population to between 30 - 50% of CRC cases, defined by our guiding biomarkers, the Glasgow Prognostic Score (GPS) and Glasgow Microenvironment Score (GMS). This clearly differentiates our approach from all competitors in the field. To our knowledge, we are the only team to have developed a lead compound series against IKKalpha with significant target selectivity over its related isoform IKKbeta. Such selectivity is a critical expectation of the pharmaceutical industry, given that prior trials of IKKbeta-inhibitors gave rise to adverse effects, including severe and chronic inflammation, immunosuppression and susceptibility to infection. We have an established and experienced interdisciplinary team with pre-clinical and clinical expertise in in PC and CRC to ensure clinical line-of-sight. We have a definable and focussed lead optimisation strategy to reach a compound suitable for extensive preclinical in-vivo validation studies in our cutting-edge, patient-relevant genetically engineered mouse models that are characterised by a strong inflammatory drive and aligned to our principal target population to evaluate IKKalpha-inhibitory responses (alone or in combination with standard-of-care treatments). We have multiplex and AI-based approaches to define biomarkers to inform future clinical translation.
Andrew Paul (Co-Investigator)David Waugh (Co-Investigator)Joanne Edwards (Co-Investigator)Owen Sansom (Co-Investigator)Richard Wilson (Co-Investigator)Simon Mackay (Principal Investigator)
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