Home About Science Investors & Partners Our people News & Events Careers Contact us Science BLOCKING TUMOUR EVOLUTION Artios is committed to developing new precision medicines for treating cancers with high unmet need. We believe that targeting the DNA damage response (DDR) has the potential to provide novel, life-extending therapies without the risk of major side-effects. 7 DDR All cells are subject to continuous DNA damage caused by exogenous and endogenous sources which must be repaired for the cells to survive as well as to avoid propagating potentially tumourigenic mutations. The range of processes through which cells sense, signal and repair DNA damage is termed the DDR. Development of cancer cells is driven by genomic instability and is dependent on the misregulation or dampening of the DDR. However, too much DNA damage is incompatible with life and so reducing DNA repair capacity in cancer cells also causes an increased dependency on the remaining processes for survival. Thus, cancer cells with defective DDR are susceptible to targeted DNA repair inhibitors. Exploiting this weakness, Artios has built a world-class platform for developing novel inhibitors of specific DNA repair enzymes that can be used as either monotherapy or in combination with other agents within predictable, identifiable, DDR-defective tumour populations. Targeting the DDR explained: 1/4 The DNA Damage Response (DDR) is a highly regulated cascade of protein signalling pathways that sense and repair DNA damage. One of the hallmarks of cancer cells is the down-regulation or loss of certain DDR pathways . Our pipeline Working with its collaborators, Artios is drugging novel protein classes across a range of DDR pathways. Artios has in-licensed two lead programmes from Cancer Research Technology, which target proteins that control key aspects of DNA repair and other cellular processes. Mechanistically, these programmes have the ability to kill cancer cells as single agents, or to sensitise cancer cells to radiotherapy and other DNA-damaging agents, including novel treatments, such as PARP inhibitors or immunotherapies. Pol Theta (Polθ) DNA polymerase theta (Polθ) is a critical component of the Polθ alt-EJ pathway, also termed the micro-homology mediated end joining (MMEJ) pathway, involved in DNA double-strand break repair. Polθ expression is low in normal tissues but it is up-regulated in a number of tumour types, such as breast, ovarian, HNSCC and lung. Polθ inhibitors have the potential to be used in a broad range of clinical settings, specifically HR-deficient tumours such as breast and ovarian cancer, or in combination with DNA-damaging agents – chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Our goal is to develop this programme through to the clinic, with the first-in-human clinical study targeted in 2021. ATR DNA Nucleases Quick links Home About Science Our team News & events Contact us Contact Telephone: +44 (0)1223 867 900 General enquiries: info@artiospharma.com Careers: HR@artiospharma.com Finance: Accounts@artiospharma.com Our career opportunities Our careers © Artios Pharma 2019 Terms & conditions | Privacy policy | Site map We use cookies to collect data, please see our privacy policy.