Industry story
New drug company targets pharmacological prevention of skin and other cancers
cancer drug-discovery medical-innovation
A drug company built on a backwards observation: sorafenib, used to treat kidney and liver cancer, causes new skin cancers in about 10% of older patients, which suggests it is suppressing something the body uses to stop tumors from forming. Lloyd Klickstein's Coslap Therapeutics is betting that gently activating that same pathway, called ribotoxic stress signaling, could prevent cancers rather than treat them. The planned trial targets adults 50 and older who have already had five or more skin cancers, a group with roughly a 50% chance of a new one within the year, which makes cancer prevention a measurable primary endpoint rather than a decades-long hope. Skin cancer runs nearly as common as all other cancers combined, so if the biology holds up in humans the way it did across 1,000 cell lines at the Broad Institute, this is a large target.
Full analysis
Lloyd Klickstein described his current company, Coslap Therapeutics, which is pursuing a drug approach to cancer prevention rather than treatment. The strategy is based on observations that sorafenib — a drug used to treat kidney and liver cancer — causes skin cancers in roughly 10% of older patients, suggesting it is suppressing a natural cancer-protective pathway. Klickstein's hypothesis is that gently activating that same pathway (called ribotoxic stress signaling) could prevent cancers from forming. In a collaboration with the Broad Institute, his team tested a tool compound across 1,000 cancer cell lines and found melanoma to be by far the most sensitive tumor type. The planned initial clinical trial would enroll adults aged 50 and older who have had at least five prior skin cancers — a group with roughly a 50% chance of a new skin cancer within a year — allowing a phase 2 study to measure cancer prevention as a primary endpoint. Klickstein said skin cancer is nearly as common as all other cancers combined, making prevention in high-risk older adults a large unmet need.
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